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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

The
EDWIN J. BEINECKE, '07
FREDERICK W. BEINECKE, '09 S
WALTER BEINECKE, 'lo
FUND

THE DECLINE OF
ARISTOCRACY

BY
ARTHUR PONSONBY, M.P.
AUTHOR OP
"THE CAMEL AND THE NEEDLE'S EYE"

" Qui sert bien son pays n'a pas besoin d'aieux." Voltaire.

T. FISHER UNWIN
LONDON : ADELPHI TERRACE
LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20
191Z

TO
M. E. P.
TO WHOM I OWE
ANYTHING I KNOW THAT IS
WORTH KNOWING

PREFACE
A NUMBER of books have been written on the
various aspects of the Rise of Democracy. But
so far as I know, writers have avoided dealing
directly with a cause which is at the same time a
result of the establishment of democratic institu
tions, namely, the Decline of Aristocracy.
The influences which contribute to any social
development and the origin and symptoms of
change in the character of a governing authority
can only be adequately examined after the lapse
of a long interval of time. Perhaps, therefore,
it is presumptuous for any one to attempt to
analyse the cross-currents of change in his own
generation. But the politician is an incorrigible
culprit in this respect. He is always watching
the signs of the times and the tendencies of
opinion, and is frequently tempted to give the
public the benefit of his observations. He is a
disturber of the peaceful calm of automatic
development, more especially when he is a
Radical. But he is one of the factors in modern
life which help to prevent the growth of man
becoming too much like the growth of vegetables.
I am quite aware that the ground covered in

PREFACE 7
this volume is highly controversial, and there
fore extremely difficult to traverse. But the
subject dealt with is one that is likely to claim
more attention as time goes on. The conse
quences of a decline in any section of the com
munity are important, and when that section has
been the dominant and governing section, the
change in its fortunes cannot fail to be a matter
of general concern.
I have devoted several chapters to the subject
of the early training of boys. From experience
and observation I am strongly impressed by the
extraordinarily thin veneer of mental and moral
instruction which is accepted as education in the
upper classes. Although increasing interest is
being taken in the question of education in
general, the Public School side of the problem
receives comparatively little consideration. But
it seems to me very pertinent in estimating the
causes of failure in the aristocracy of to-day.
I have tried to avoid the indiscriminate abuse
of one side and the undiscriminating pretensions
of the other side, with both of which I am fairly
intimately acquainted. My desire has been not
to carp or sneer, but to follow out an argument
of direct attack in the light of undisputed facts,
though I fully admit I have given my own inter
pretations of those facts. I have been at pains
to avoid any suggestion of personalities or aiming
the shaft of criticism against any recognisable
individual. The charge may be made that much of my

8 PREFACE
criticism is destructive, but I may plead that to
give warning of danger is the necessary pre
liminary to avoiding it ; to discover and diagnose
a disease is the first essential to curing it. I
have outlined suggestions for reform in some
directions, but I have no inclination to formulate
a cut-and-dried scheme of social reconstruction,
which can easily be demolished or proved to be
fantastic. The thesis has many bearings and is wide in
scope. I only endeavour briefly to suggest a line
of argument so as to present a case for discus
sion. It would require a historian who was at
the same time a sociologist, with close knowledge
of the various strata into which our national
life is divided up, to make a study that was in
any way complete.
By the kind permission of the editor of The
Nation I am able to use the substance of two
or three articles I have contributed at different
times to that journal. Mr. and Mrs. J. L.
Hammond have kindly read through the MS., and
I owe a great deal to their suggestions and to
the advice they have given me. I have also
had close at hand constant and valuable help
from my wife, with whom I have been able to
discuss fully each point as it arose.
T, C A. p.
Shulbbede Fbiorv, Sussex,
1912.

CONTENTS

Preface ...... 6
chapter i
Aristocracy . . . . .13
Theory of an aristocracy — The hereditary principle — Social
and poUtical power of the aristocracy — Their deterioration
— Change in their status — Use of the word " gentleman "
— ^The danger of prejudice — The ideal of democracy —
Equality of opportunity — The outlook of the upper class.
chapter ii
The Past . . . . . .31
Attitude of the aristocracy unchanged — The part they
have played in history — The gentleman of the sixteenth
century — Low standard under the Stuarts — Puritan
influence — Reaction at the Restoration — The gentleman's
children in the seventeenth century — Manners — Clothes —
The aristocracy of the eighteenth century — Swift, on
education — Satire on the governing class — Sinecures —
Parliament only representative of upper class — Privileges
of aristocrats — Importance of dress — Depravity at the end
of eighteenth century — Reasons for change of tone in
soeiety^The duel — Landed gentry — Cavaliers and Round
heads — Whigs and Tories — The fear of democracy —
Difficulty of choosing types.

10 CONTENTS

The Club

CHAPTER III pAOB
. 69

Power and popularity of the governing class— Origin of
the Club— Mug-house Clubs— White's— Almaok's— The
macaroni- The beau— The dandy— Other clubs— Their
exclusiveness — Enormous extension of clubs in the
mneteenth century — Contrasted with the caf 6— Anti-
domestic character of clubs — Their social and political
influence. CHAPTER IV
The Old Nobility . . . . .85
Change of type — Mid- Victorian aristocracy — Their charac
teristics — Their manners — Their view of riches — Their
domestic life — Education — Decline of power — Rise of
middle class — Social changes — Aristocrat's reply to attack
on his caste.
chapter v
Lords and Commons . . . .99
Decline of political power of the aristocracy — The Parlia
ment Act of 1911 — Events which led up to it — Reform
BUI of 1832 the beginning of the change — Composition of
House of Commons — Rise of Trade Unions — House of
Lords unaffected by changes — The Liberal peer — Treat
ment of Liberal legislation by the Lords — The election of
1906 — Conflict between the two Houses — The aristocracy
and the Conservative party — The social side of political
Ufe.
chapter vi
Hereditary Titles . . . ,119
Titles part of the national tradition — Titles in the past—
The creation of peers — The nobility in France— Titles as
a sign of public recognition— Increase of orders and
decorations— The pride in hereditary titles— Coats of arms
and crests — Succession to a peerage — Suggested Act for
termination of hereditary titles.

CONTENTS 11
CHAPTER VII
PAOE
The Aristocrat of To-day . . . 135
Contrast between tiristocrats of to-day and their prede
cessors — Their fear of democracy — Restlessness of modern
life — Loss of distinction — Three sections of the aristocracy
— Money — Land — Birth and noble blood — The peerage —
Merit — The qualities of a gentleman — The combat of the
aristooraoy with the new forces— Want of education.
chapter viu
The Influence of Home .... 166
Importance of education — Its objects — Desire of parents to
shirk responsibility — The nurse — The children's sur
roundings — The boys' hoUdays — The influence of a home
— The parents' duties — First knowledge of sexual problem
— A child's powers of expression^ — Their imagination and
reasoning faculty — Personal initiative — Necessity for
attention and sympathy.
chapter ix
The Public School .... 189
Private schools — Day schools — The object of PubUo
Schools — Different systems of secondary education — The
powerful influence of Public Schools — Their conservatism
— Class prejudice — Luxurious surroundings — Disagreeable
nature of mental work — The stereotyping process — The
—si suppression of originality — The large class — The master —
Examinations — Subjects of study — Absorption in games —
Expenses — The gentleman at school — Opinion on failure
of Public Schools — Strangers deceived by outward
appearances.
chapter x
Religious Education .... 231
Necessity of religion as a groundwork of education —
Preference for EstabUshed Church — The Catechism — The
children of wrath — The spirit of perfection — Attitude of
parents on reUgion — School routine — Scripture history —
Chapel — Lack of moral training — Avoidance of real
Christian teaching— Orthodox beliefs not real religion —
How boys are affected.

12 CONTENTS CHAPTER XI PAGE
A Pers6nal Experience . • • '
Private school-General result from Public School training
-Latin - Greek - English literature - Mathematics-
Modern languages - History - Number of teachers --
Rigidity of system-Games— Fagging— Manners— Wasted
opportunities — Boy hardly to blame.

chapter xii
The Public Schools Commission . . 262
Commission reported in 1864 — Point of -view of the Com
missioners — Schools originally founded for the education
of the poor — Evidence before the Commission — Increase
in number at schools since 1861 — No real change in
system — The study of classics— -Grammar — Specialisation
— Reluctance of school authorities to adopt reforms — The
position of a critic. CHAPTER Xin
University and Professions . . . 279
Erudition — Enlightenment — Scholarship — The boy on
leaving school — The crammer — The University contrasted
with the Public School — Examinations, scholarships, and
degrees — The roll of fame of schools and colleges —
Athletics — The professions for gentlemen — Political life —
The gentleman's inadequate equipment — Unlimited leisure
unmanageable.
chapter xiv
The Future ... .306
Cause of decline of aristocracy — The aristocrat's position
to-day — His supposed advantages — Improvements in
habits — The amateur — Treatment of women — School-
training the weakest point — The dangers of plutocracy —
Arbitrary nature of social divisions — The fostering of
individuality — Necessity for aristocracy to face the facts.

The Decline of Aristocracy

CHAPTER I
ARISTOCRACY
Theory of an aristocracy — The hereditary principle — Social
and political power of the aristocracy — Their deteriora
tion — Change in their status — Use of the word
"gentleman" — The danger of prejudice — The ideal of
democracy — Equality of opportunity — The outlook of
the upper class.
Aristocracy in its pure theoretical sense means
government by the best, the best being
those who are superior both morally and Intel'
lectually, and who, therefore, would govern
directly in the interests of the governed. But
this is a theoretical ideal of ancient Greek
philosophers. In practice such an ideal has
never been realised, for the simple reason that
the best are undiscoverable. The attempt to
institute a perfect aristocracy led to government
by an oligarchy consisting of a council of nobles,
whose claim to rule was founded on the qualifica
tion of birth, civic status, and the ownership of
land. The danger of an oligarchy is that it may

14 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
deteriorate into a plutocracy, the qualification of
the possession of wealth being stronger than any
other. The theory of government by aristocracy
or oligarchy presupposes that there are a mass
of people who are inferior by nature and adapted
to submission ; in the interests of good govern
ment, therefore, the management of affairs should
be placed in the hands of the best, however they
may be selected. ! The system established under
feudalism was entirely different. Each noble
governed in his own particular area, but no
sovereign authority was vested in the nobles
collectively. The most notable instances in
history of States governed by aristocracies are
the republics of Venice, of Genoa, and of the
Dutch Netherlands, and actually, though not
J nominally. Great Britain between 1689 and 183.2.
The aristocracy in this country was primarily one
of birth dependent on the occasional ennobling of
individuals by the sovereign or his government,
at first either as a mark of Court favour or for
their public and political services, and subse
quently also for their wealth and their adherence
to the political party in power.
The vast aristocratical system which came to
be organised in the Middle Ages contributed more
than any other single cause to consolidate the
doctrine of hereditary merit. " For the essence
of an aristocracy," as Lecky says, " is to transfer
the source of honour from the living to the dead
to make the merits of living men depend not
so much upon their own character and actions as

ARISTOCRACY 15
upon the actions and position of their ancestors ;
and as a great aristocracy is never insulated, as
its ramifications penetrate into many spheres, and
its social influence modifies all the relations of
society the minds of men become insensibly
habituated to a standard of judgment from which
they would otherwise have recoiled. If in the
sphere of religion the rationalistic doctrine of
personal merit or demerit should ever completely
supersede the theological doctrine of hereditary
merit or demerit, the change will, I believe, be
largely influenced by the triumph of democratic
principles in the sphere of politics." *
The hereditary principle is, indeed, being
slowly discarded. If accepted at all, it is justified
not so much on the ground of the direct transfer
of merit in the succeeding generations of a
particular family, as on the assumption that an
oligarchy accustomed and educated to perform
the duties of government is more likely to
produce men well suited for such work than
any other class. But if this oligarchy is to cease
having the monopoly of political and administra
tive power even this slender foundation for
supporting the hereditary principle will dis
appear. The basis of aristocratic government is the
negation of liberty, and this is the underlying
cause of its ultimate failure.
The word aristocracy is now used almost
entirely in its social sense and denotes a class
* " Rise and Influence of Rationalism," vol. i.

16 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
of society which consists of the nobility and
leisured gentlefolk. No one would pretend that
they are either morally, intellectually, or physic
ally the best (Spitrroi), but it would be a great
mistake to suppose that they have entirely lost
all powers of government (Kparia). No doubt
they have been shorn of a great deal of the
supreme power they held before 1832, and most
of their privileges have vanished. But the rise oi
democracy has thrown them almost completely]
on to the side of one of the two chief political
parties in the State, and that party with all its
power can, by fighting for their privileges and
interests, not only prevent their demolition, but
to some extent secure a continuance of their
ascendancy. It is quite comprehensible that as
a class they should be conservative and desire to
leave things as they are. They have no struggle
for the means of life, they are quite comfortable,
and therefore cannot be expected to be respon
sive to the demands made for the further growth
of institutions and readjustment to altered condi
tions. Conservatism therefore is an upper-class
characteristic, and consequently is a sign of
respectability. Apart from their actual political power, which
after all is a mere ghost of what they formerly
enjoyed, in the social world they reign supreme,
and their supremacy would be maintained here
even if they were divorced absolutely from all
political power. Aristocracies are apt to think
too much of persons and positions to weigh facts

ARISTOCRACY 17
and opinions justly, but there can be no greater
error than to dismiss the fact of their social
dominance as negligible. /?In some ways social
supremacy is a stronger force than the positive
and ostensible powers of legislation and adminis
tration. It may even to a large extent vitiate the
results of reforming legislation ; because true
reform is not brought about by the mere passing
and imposition of new laws, but by the genuine
desire of the mass of the people to assist in
carrying out the proposed change. If a re
actionary spirit and a conservative habit of mind
hold the field to any appreciable degree the
results will be barren and nugatory. Th.e social
standard that is set of morals, habits, and
fashions forms in itself an ideal which a very
vast number of people are constantly endeavour
ing to reach, and whatever may be the laws to
which they have to conform, the influence of the
social ideal is the main factor in governing their
conduct and forming their ambitions. School
masters say that the most vital element in the
success and efficiency of a school is its tone, and
that this is determined not by school regula
tions so much as by the character, influence,
and habits of the leading boys. So in a State
where social life is of such importance as it
is in this country, it should be better understood
that the leaders of society exercise an influence
far in excess of that which the bare numerical
strength of their class would justify. Moreover,
as landlords and business magnates, they estab-
2

18 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
lish a further direct rule over a large section
of the agricultural and industrial population. A
series of volumes is now being issued under the
title of "The Governing Families of Britain,"
the word " governing " is significant and by no
means wholly inaccurate.
The modern aristocracy, therefore, it will be
seen still have some political power, chiefly,
though not exclusively, through the party in the
State with which they are identified. They
have in their corporate capacity practically
supreme social power, which we shall have
occasion to analyse further, and in their indivi
dual capacity they have localised and specialised
control given them by their wealth and position.
Aristocrats, however decadent, cannot be
abolished any more than anarchists, however
dangerous. A student of chemistry who sees an
undesirable scum forming on the solution he has
under observation knows that the simple removal
of the scum will not prevent its reappearance.
As a proper expedient he will instil some fresh
counteracting ingredient into the mixture.
It is no good whatever suggesting that this
class should either be abolished or ignored. Any
abrupt upheaval would only lead to a reaction
in their favour, and the conservative and re
actionary forces in the country, even when in
abeyance, are very strong. The aristocracy is,
it is true, more or less a class apart, but they are
going through a transition stage. They have lost
the ancient glories of their past state, and in

ARISTOCRACY 19
their metamorphosis appear to be in doubt as
to what are the essential qualities now required
of them. There are great signs of deterioration
on which we shall have occasion to dwell, but
having established the fact that their case is one
that calls for examination, we shall find the
problems it involves are well worth a good deal
of thought and attention.
To attempt to improve this class in the
sociological sense would not mean to strengthen
them in the class sense. On the contrary, their
improvement must entail the acceptance by them
of a higher intellectual standard and a healthier
moral standard, and the abandonment of the last
of the spurious advantages which emanate solely
from causes connected with birth and money.
As every general committee elects an executive,
so democracy, however complete, will always
desire to place some sort of directing and respon
sible power into the hands of a selected or elected
few. The weak will always be ready to subordinate
themselves to the protection (not the domination )
of the strong. The unskilled will be ready to
benefit by the instruction (not the dictation) of
the skilled. " The work of government is a form
of skilled labour which should be in the hands
of those who possess the requisite skill." * The
essential qualification in these few is not that
they should be of outstanding talent and genius,
nor of course that they should be of high social
status, but that they should be thoroughly repre-
* " Elements of Politics," Sidgwick.

20 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
sentative and so be faithful interpreters so far
as it is humanly possible, of the popular wi 1
Theirs is a position of trust which they should
hold by the active consent of the citizens. If
supermen could be deliberately created, or un
failingly discovered, we might be inclined to
prefer an aristocratic form of government. If
men with the highest mental capacities were the
most useful and most helpful to progress, and
made the best citizens, then the ideal of an
aristocracy of brains might be aimed at. But
the one is impossible and the other undesirable.
The most intellectual are not fitted for supremacy
any more than the most moral, the most noble, or
the strongest physically. The qualities required are
not to be measured by any mental or physical tests.
There appears to be in human nature an
inexplicable tendency to balance defects in one
direction by compensation in another direction,
and in the long run the unaccountable ele
ment of character seems to be the factor
which counts the most and inspires the greatest
confidence. As this element defies any test we
must fall back on selection or election backed by
consent. The modern aristocracy as a class
having no outstanding qualities, and being
entirely unrepresentative, and neither elected nor
selected, falls very short of any ideal. The
question is whether it is to be ousted and ignored
and relegated to the position of exiles like the
French nobility, or whether it should be impreg
nated with a new spirit, and in so far as it obsti-

ARISTOCRACY 21
nately clings to discredited privileges and refuses
to assimilate that spirit, checked, and in so far as
it absorbs the new spirit, encouraged.
The second would seem to be the wiser course.
It is evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and
it accepts the possibility of the existence of
certain elements in the aristocracy, as we find
it, that are worth maintaining or worth develop
ing. The expulsion of any class from a share
in government even if it were possible is prob
ably undesirable. The countries in which the
aristocracy stand aloof from public affairs, and
which are left entirely in the hands of the
bourgeoisie and selected working-class repre
sentatives are not entirely the better for it.
The more intelligent of the aristocracy are
themselves the first to admit that political and
social developments have materially altered the
status and character of their caste. They would
deplore an attitude of inertia which would mean
drifting to destruction and being absorbed most
probably in the first instance by a plutocracy ;
and they are sensible enough to understand that
the call of democracy cannot be ignored and
the wave of democracy cannot be repulsed, and
that it is futile for them to confine their activities
to self-preservation or to clinging to antiquated
and obsolete privileges.
A higher and different standard is required
of them, and in the interests of the State, as
well as in their own interests, they should be
assisted in their efforts to join in the work of

22 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
national and social progress, not as nominal and
privileged leaders, nor as a class apart, but as
efficient coadjutors, merged in and assimilated.
to the whole body of citizens devoted to service
of one kind or another. It is useless to go on
pretending that they are a superior class, or that
there is any justification, social or political, for
treating them as a separate and distinct caste.
Their aptitude for the work which is allotted
to some of them is now in question. They are
ready enough to undertake the nominal r61e
of manager, director, instructor, or patron. But
they must no longer refuse to compete and stand
or fall by the measure of merit and worth.
In all fairness it must be admitted that a
change in point of view is not only incumbent
[,on them, but also on those who accept their
domination and enjoy subservience to a social
aristocracy and the comforting protection of a
patron and overlord more than the freedom and
self-respect that comes from a position of inde
pendence. A change of attitude is also to be
expected— and in this case its accomplishment
will be still more difficult— from the host of
aspirants who are devoting their efforts to the
task of climbing into the position of leisured
ease which seems to have such fatal attractions.
The attention of the country is now being con
stantly drawn to the great industrial and social
problems connected with the workers. Legisla
tion and improved administration is directed
towards coping with the problems of destitution,

ARISTOCRACY 23
of poverty, of sickness among the wage-earners,
and of improvement in the housing conditions,
as well as to factory and mining legislation. The
State, in fact, is realising more and more its
great responsibilities and becoming alive to the
fact that national prosperity and commercial and
social well-being depend on the continual rela
tive improvement in the condition of the people.
But meanwhile the well-to-do — the employer
class, the landlords, the upper class, the nobility,
the aristocracy, call them what you will — entirely
escape attention. It is accepted generally that
they fitly perform the function of the model
which others may copy, that they properly set
the standard to which the less fortunate may
aspire, and that their condition is highly satis
factory, simply because in the material sense they
are well off. We cannot investigate their cir
cumstances and inquire into their activities. But
the suspicion is growing that our aristocratic
model is deteriorating, that our patricians are
inadequately performing the duties which fall to
them, that they are by no means alive to their
responsibilities, and that democracy demands a
higher level of trained, well-informed, and, if
necessary, specialised capacity in the lagents
which are required to perform its work. There
is an increasing impatience against the existence
of a class that merely vegetates, lives off the fat
of the land, and squanders, according to their
whim and fancy, the wealth that others have
toiled to create. There is no room for a purely,

24 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
ornamental class in a modern state, and it is an
abuse of liberty and a danger to social advance
ment to allow any large section^ of the community
to be idle and parasitic.
The word " aristocracy " is now a social term,
and does not quite cover the entire class under
consideration ; but it is very difficult to hit uponj
a word that does, and the word " aristocrat "i
must therefore be used generally. Nobility
denotes a still more restricted section of titled
personages. The expressions " upper class " and
" society " are too vague. " The rich " comes
near to being accurate, but it is still too narrow,
and suggests an economic discussion on the cause
of riches which is entirely outside the argument!
The comparatively small section of the com
munity with which we are here concerned cer
tainly consider themselves " gentlemen." More
than this, they claim the monopoly of the term,
and are secretly convinced that other people are
not, strictly speaking, gentlemen. But, as will
be seen, this claim is quite inadmissible. They
have no business to restrict the word to those
alone who bear a particular aristocratic cachet,
the presence or absence of which they pride
themselves on being able to detect immediately.
Not only is the definition of the word "gentle
man " difficult because the exact meaning of the
term is illusive, but because each one who
attempts to define it is slightly biased according
to his own social status. Just as in the upper
strata of society the interpretation may be too

ARISTOCRACY 25
narrow, so in the lower strata it may be too
broad, being sometimes employed for any one
who is not actually employed in manual labour.
The word " gentleman " is, anyhow, very
elastic ; but it has two meanings— the one
moral, the other social. Both of these must
in due course be carefully examined. In its
broadest social sense it has become considerably
extended, and covers a very much larger field
than it did in the past ; whereas the moral sig
nificance of the word has remained unchanged,
and can only be applied to a limited number.
The two categories are by no means identical —
that is to say, a gentleman, socially speaking,
may be a gentleman, morally speaking ; on the
other hand, he may not. There are many who
have every claim to the title of gentleman as
used to-day, but who have not been born in
a privileged position and have not from the
first had social advantages. These are not to
be included in the discussion. If the word
"gentleman" is used, therefore, it is in a
restricted sense, but as an extension of the term
" aristocrat." The governing class until lately consisted
almost exclusively of men born, bred, and edu
cated as aristocrats or gentlemen of the upper
class— that is to say, with means enough either
to free them entirely from the necessity of having
to work for a living or to adopt a profession
merely as a pastime or a temporary occupation.
The advantages, privileges, and favours on which

26 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
they formerly depended are found in modern
life to carry with them drawbacks and danger^
which appear, as each decade passes, to make
their position more untenable. The main cause
of their failure to rise to such responsibilities
as they still retain lies in their training and
education, which must be closely considered.
There was a time when a good education was
one of the marks of a gentleman. With the
general spread of educational opportunities this
has ceased to be the case. We now seem to be
entering on an era in which want of educatioi|
is to be the mark of this sort of gentleman. If
in their endeavour to rehabilitate themselves the
aristocracy were to insist on better training andj
education they would defeat their own object,
for by this means their eyes would be opened to
the falsity of their present position. Ill-equipped
as they are now, they are destined to become
more and more ineffective. Were they better
equipped they would no longer aim at the objects
nor cling to the ideals which at present seem to^
them desirable. They would have the sense toi
regard the decline in their own authority, neces
sitated by the rise of democracy, as an excuse!
for gradually renouncing all claim to special
treatment. There are two opposing rocks of strong preju
dice, between which it will be necessary to steer
a middle course. Prejudice is caused either by
incomplete and inaccurate knowledge of circum
stances or by a fixed determination to view only

ARISTOCRACY 27
one side of the question. On the one side there
is the intolerant and aggressively hostile view
that all the upper class are titled, gilded, idle
popinjays, who may be disregarded and despised
as useless and negligible ; on the other side, an
arrogant and equally intolerant belief that refine
ment and excellence can only be produced by
what is supposed to be good breeding, leisure,
and money, and that men who are not aristocrats
are cads. The first view is held by a compara
tively small number of a very large class ; the
second is held by a comparatively large number
|of a very small class, for whose ignorance there
can be no excuse. There can be no place for
the sham democratic view held by those who
insist that the life and career of any working-
man is noble and wonderful when compared with
the life of any gentleman. This idealisation is
a form of prejudice ; it ignores the fact that
his conditions prevent the worker from being
able to develop as he ought to, and that this is
the very reason why all efforts should be con
centrated on improving them. On the other
hand, a still wider berth must be given to the
superstitious beliefs in the superior qualities of
an aristocracy and its essential fitness to under
take the functions of government and of social
leadership.* Even between these two extremes
the channel is very controversial and debatable.
If any course can be clearly marked, it is
the line of argument which gladly accepts the
gradual supremacy of democracy, acknowledging
* See " British Family Antiquity," by William Playfair.

28 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
that it can be achieved step by step througl
arduous endeavour and properly organist
education, so that it may attain its complefe
expression by acquiring a degree of efficiencf
which will be the best proof of its aptitude fd
control. There should also be due recognitioi
of certain genuine qualities worth rescuing froi
a vanishing aristocracy which can be utilisd
for the common good, and which will become ol
enhanced value once they are finally detachd
from the corrupting influence of the illiberal
spirit of privilege and idleness.
The true ideal of democracy is not equality
of type, but equality of opportunity, which migW
produce far more varied types and, with the
level raised, far more surprising achievements,
But this is not to be approached except througlij
education. Even when there is money to pro
vide the opportunity the trouble is that there
is not the sense or the foresight to seek it,
Democracy must be on its guard in its very
natural prejudice against traditions of reflnemeit
and leisure which have been so misused by the
; aristocracy. It must be careful not to insist on
; a general average type characterised by the self-
satisfied mediocrity of a bourgeoisie devoid ol
dignity or noble aspirations, more hostile to
labour than the aristocracy itself, and only edu
cated in a purely utilitarian sense towards
standard of brute efficiency. It is by the truej
sort of education that leads to enlightenment that
democracy will avoid this kind of disaster. The
ultra -technical narrow training which pays no

ARISTOCRACY 29
"heed to scholarship/ sesthetics, or even manners
% the surest method of paving the way to a
^'plutocracy. There are signs of this in the richer
middle class, and they are pointing the way to
those below them.
Equality of opportunity is prevented at present
fchiefly by the extremes of poverty and riches.
The poor cannot get anything like a fair chance
for their children, and the rich, instead of spjend-
!ing their wealth' in providing specially favourable
opportunities for the younger generation, and
insisting on the highest level possible of educa-
itional efficiency, are tempted by that very wealth
Jto neglect the close personal supervision of the
children's upbringing and to submit to a system
!which affords a sufficiently expensive but utterly
unsuitable course of training for their boys. It
is commonly supposed that while the poor are
deprived of adequate opportunities the rich are
amply provided with them. But no one can say
that the children of the rich have anything like
favourable opportunities afforded them. Their
fathers seem to have consented to be party to
a conspiracy to provide for them exclusive and
exceptional opportunities which are not only
inadequate but are turning out to be positively
injurious. It may be convenient to detach one class for
special examination, and in this case we are
selecting the class which generally escapes
serious criticism, though it may sometimes come
in for wild condemnation. All classes and sec
tions, however, are closely interdependent, and

30 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
no beneficial change can be effected in one
without some alteration in the others. As it is,
the lowest class fails to develop through want
of money and excess of toil. The middle class
may have sufficient money, and in many ways
is the best situated. But it is still excluded in
many cases from rising in the chief professions
by being deprived of the special sort of interest
and the social advantages which give free entry
to the best positions. Hence it becomes further
hampered by turning its energy to the pursuit
of the false ideal set by its social superiors, and
by hankering after social promotion instead of
helping to break down the interest and unde
sirable influence which still prevent certain
professions from being open to free competition.
The upper class has the money, the special
interest, and the social advantages, and to it all
doors are open. But being in no way intrinsic
ally superior to the rest of the community, and
these so-called advantages being in reality serious
handicaps, it suffers even more than the rest
from arrested and crippled mental and moral
growth. The gentlemen of this class, therefore, ougjht
to be brought under the microscope of the
sociologist. His environment having changed,
many of his functions have altered with it or
altogether ceased. If there is any serious
deterioration, we ought to find out not only how
far it has damaged the species itself, but in what
way the general community is affected.

CHAPTER II
THE PAST
Attitude of the aristocracy unchanged — The part they have
played in history — The gentleman of the sixteenth
century — Low standard under the Stuarts — Puritan
influence — Reaction at the Restoration — The gentle
man's children in the seventeenth century — Manners —
Clothes — The aristocracy of the eighteenth century —
Swift, on education — Satire on the governing class
— Sinecures — Parliament only representative of upper
class — Privileges of aristocrats — Importance of dress —
Depravity at the end of eighteenth century — Reasons
for change of tone in Society — The duel — Landed
gentry — Cavaliers and Roundheads — Whigs and Tories
— The fear of democracy — Difficulty of choosing types.
In tracing the actions, opinions, and ideas of
the aristocracy back through the centuries of
our national history, it will be apparent that
the difference of one epoch from another, and
the change from one era to the succeeding era
are, so far as this class is concerned, largely
matters of habit, custom, and fashion. The
striking thing is that the point of view and
the attitude of mind remains practically the
same. A superior governing class remains a
superior governing class so long as, by some
means or other, it can convince the majority
31

32 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
of the people of its superiority, and so keep in
its hands the reins of government. To take only
the last three hundred years, we find the gradual
and profound social and economic changes hardly
touched the aristocracy in their sheltered posi
tion, and passed almost unnoticed by them.
Their castle on the sand served their purpose
perfectly, and was, in truth, solid enough so long
as the tide was far enough out. The heyday of
their domination was the period between the
Revolution and the passing of the Reform Bill,
a time when the autocratic power of the sovereign
was broken down, and they consequently secured .
control of the government of the country. They
had done a service in helping to destroy
the prerogatives of an absolute monarchy,
they were acknowledged as governors, leaders,
and captains par excellence, they had the prac
tical monopoly of education, and they were
without rivals. What may be described as the
reality of their position makes their qualities
and characteristics, bad and good, seem more
important, more salient, and of more account
than those of their successors to-day, whose
position is so entirely false and unreal, and
who hardly count as an organic part of an
industrial community.
It is not really surprising that the point of
view should remain unaltered because a man
on a pedestal, be that pedestal of granite or
cardboard, always has the same perspective of
outlook. His eyes must be cast down at others,

THE PAST 33
and the gaze of others, except those wiho are
also on pedestals, must be turned upwards at
him. For two hundred years and more before
1832 one may notice in varying intensity the
same arrogance, the same patronising condescen
sion, the same selfishness, the same importance
attached to outward manner and to dress, the
same worldliness and the samle brilliance and
distinction, which made them the fear and envy
of other orders of society. Their education
varied. Sometimes it reached a comparatively
high level, and it appears to have degenerated
when their political power began to be
threatened. Most of the names we can recall in the world of
action and in the public service are those of the
aristocrats, the nobility, or anyhow the gentlemen
of the day. This is not to be wondered at,
because history was written, and is to a large
extent still written, on their behalf, from their
point of view, and for their glorification. From
the romantic days of the idealised knight of
chivalry, when the materials for history are very
scanty, down to the prosaic nineteenth century,
with its voluminous records, their brilliant figures
occupy the front of the stage with heroic deeds,
wars, intrigues, orations, and functions, in which
they take the leading part and stand out
as the only actors of note. And yet behind
them, invisible, were the millions, silent
and unobserved, building up the country's
strength and laying the deep foundations of
3

34 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
future progress. But the people had no his
torian. Their privations, their trials, their
achievements are not recorded, unless they came
into actual conflict with the lords and masters,
and then we are told the masters' version of the
story. There never has been any clear line drawn
between gentlemen and other folk. What con
stituted a gentleman socially was ever in dispute.
Ease, leisure, and plenty were always the recog
nised characteristics, as we know from the lines
repeated by John Ball's rebels in the fourteenth
century— "When Adam delved and Eve span
Who was then the gentleman ? "
In the sixteenth century it was supposed that
the possession of a coat of arms was indis
pensable for a complete gentleman. This idea
continued because those who held the offices of
heralds desired to profit as much as possible by
the fees they could collect for registering coats.
Though this purely heraldic notion did not last,
as it was soon found that a coat of arms could be
assumed without the shadow of a claim, it is
interesting as showing the attempt to constitute
gentlemen into a distinct order and classify them
in a separate category.
The moral attributes of a gentleman were
appreciated from the first. Henry Peacham, in
his " Compleat Gentleman," in the seventeenth
century draws the distinction: "Neither must

THE PAST 35
we honour or esteem those ennobled or made
gentle in blood who by mechanic and base means
have raked up a mass of wealth ... or have
purchased an ill coat [of arms] at a good rate ;
no more than a player upon the stage for wearing
a lord's cast suit ; since nobility hangeth not
upon the airy esteem of vulgar opinion, but is
indeed of itself essential and absolute."
The aristocracy of the Tudor period had its
faults and vices, but they were cloaked by grace
and chivalry, and in some cases modified by
scholarship and enlightenment. Under the
Stuarts the tone and character of the aristocracy
greatly deteriorated. In the Court of James I.
there were a number of notorious evil livers.
Mrs. Hutchinson, in her contemporary memoir
of her husband, describes it " as a nursery of
lust and intemperance ; the generality of the
gentry of the land soon learned the Court fashion,
and every great house in the country became a
sty of uncleanness." Most of the old nobility
and peers of the best type avoided the Court and
spent their time in travel, or in the retirement
of their country houses. The account of Cam
bridge given by d'Ewes in 1620 shows how
widespread the vicious manner of living had
become : " The main thing that made me even
weary of the College was that swearing, drinking,
rioting, and hatred of all piety and virtue under
false and adulterated nicknames did abound there
and generally in all the University. Nay, the
very sin of lust began to be known and prac-

36 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
tised by very boys, so as I was fain to live
almost a recluse's life conversing cheerfully in
our own College with some of the honester
fellows thereof."
Although under Charles I. there was an im
provement, the cavalier manner of living was
still one of profligacy and extravagance, and came
in for hot condemnation from the Puritans, who
were inclined to veer too much to the other
extreme and set up an unreachable standard of
austerity and self-denial. While they put down
bull -baiting, bear-baiting, horse-racing, and cock-
fighting, they also abolished the village revels
and the dance under the maypole, and condemned
half the popular observances of England as
superstitions. The result was that a charge of
hypocrisy was levelled against them, not always
without reason ; and when the reaction came
against their code of manners and morals, it was
so extreme that society was plunged into a deeper
vortex than ever of vice and frivolity.
During the ascendancy of the Puritan influence
the aristocracy were in low water. The people
of London " could scarce endure the sight of a
gentleman." Between the two alternatives it was
difficult for a gentleman to make a choice. Sir
John Reresby decided to travel abroad with a tutor,
as he found " such as lived in town were either
zealots with the rebellious schismatical supersti
tions of those times, or so very debauched on the
other hand that it was very hard for a young man
to avoid infection on the one side or the other."

THE PAST 37
The Restoration, as already pointed out,
marked an epoch of reaction in the aristocracy,
against what was considered Puritan hypocrisy.
The sovereign always exercised a strong influ
ence over the manners of the Court, and the
Court in their turn set the pattern for the
nobility and gentry. Charles II. 's selfishness and
duplicity led him to take a cynical view of the
world, and through his influence cynicism became
the mark of the " fine gentleman." Duelling,
swearing, gambling, and drinking, often combined
with a shameless brutality, were fashionable and
considered correct so long as the outward appear
ance gave the impression of refinement. The
courtier is told in one of the comedies of the
time that " he must dress well, dance well, fence
well, have a talent for love-letters, and agreeable
voice, be amorous and discreet— but not too
constant." The reaction, indeed, was social more than
political. It was a reconstitution of the old social
order that had been disturbed by the Common
wealth. The lords, gentry, lawyers, and clergy
returned to their old positions. There was even
a scheme proposed for making a sharp and
permanent division between classes. The nobles
were to be raised higher above the masses, the
commons confined to trade, the clergy entrusted
with jurisdiction, and so on. An estimate made
by Gregory King in 1688 gives some idea of their
financial position ; he puts the average income
of a knight at £650, an esquire £450, a gentleman

38 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
£280. These sums of money must be multiplied
fivefold or sixfold to be expressed in modern
equivalents.* While the aristocracy of the Stuart epoch was
very strongly contrasted with the rest of the
people, and was increasing in power, nevertheless
the personal contact between the rich and the
poor was closer than it was later. The gentle
man's life was sometimes simple and frugal, and
his education cheaper and more practical. f The
great difference of environment must always be
borne in mind. Very slow coach travelling was
attended by a certain amount of danger and
adventure, and not till 1695 was there any daily
press. Gentlemen to-day have no wolves dis
turbing the peace of their country homes, no
highwaymen to make travel adventurous, no fresh
explorations to make when they travel abroad,
no hardships and discomforts in the mechanical
side of domestic life. But whatever beneficent
effects railways, motor-cars, stacks of news
papers, electric light and bath-rooms may bring
in their train, it is certain that even the idleness
of the Stuart gentleman had its stimulating and
arduous side, whereas the twentieth -century
idleness can only be described as enervating
and demoralising.
Gentlemen's children in the seventeenth century
were treated with great severity and often
neglected. They were left to servants and
* " Social England," ed. by H. D. Trail and J. S. Mann.
f " England under the Stuarts," 6. M. Trevelyan.

THE PAST 39
inferiors, and in the earliest years put out to
nurse with country women. But in later years
the sons were frequently given a liberal educa
tion and a proper training for the public duties
they were destined to undertake. Sons of the
gentry were taken into the households of lords
and county magnates as scholars, pages, or
companions, where they learned something of the
high life of the period, its bad as well as its
good side. The younger sons of the aristocracy
were taught by the chaplain, who was reckoned
among the " domestics," and was required to
leave the dinner -table before the sweet course.
After going to a Public School and University
they were sent to the cities to seek their fortune
in commerce, or they would go to the Bar, or
into the Church. The eldest son was rarely sent
to school or University. After a course of legal
training to prepare him for the duties of justice
of the peace, he would finish his education by
travelling abroad with a tutor, and thereby gain
ing a close acquaintance with foreign countries
and foreign languages.* Marriage seems to have
been regarded as a purely, commercial proceed
ing—so much " portion " against so much income.
Affection between husbands and wives or parents
and children was extremely strong, but the ordin
ary falling in love of young men and maidens
was not thought of much importance. "I mean
to marry my daughter to £2,000 a year," writes
Sir John Bacchus to Sir Ralph Verney. The
* Ibid.

40 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
bargaining was done by parents and relations.
The children were not always consulted.*/
There are instances of severe studies being
undertaken by boys at a very early age. Evelyn's
son could read at the age of two and a half, and
before five had " learned out Puerilis " and
"made progress in Comenius Janua." As to
sending boys to Public Schools, two opposite
views are given by a son of Lord Cork, who
went to Eton when he was eight, and by Locke,
who had been at Westminster. The former
writes, " Breeding up of great men's children at
home tempts them to nicety, to pride and idle
ness, and contributes much more to give them
a good opinion of themselves than to deserve it."
Whereas Locke says, "How any one's being,
put into a mixed herd of boys, and there learning/
to wrangle at trap or rook at span farthing fits
him for conversation or business, I do not see."i
Chatham at a later period expressing his
opinion on the same subject said, "A Public
School might suit a boy, of a turbulent, forward
disposition, but would not do where there was
any gentleness."
There were about three hundred boys at West
minster, and Eton was no bigger. The other
Public Schools of note that were in existence
were Winchester, the earliest foundation of them
all, Harrow, Rugby, Shrewsbury, St. Paul's, and
Merchant Taylors', all founded in the sixteenth
century, and Charterhouse at the beginning of
* Verney Family Memoirs.

THE PAST 41
the seventeenth century. But they were small
schools, and some of only local importance.
Education was indeed restricted to a select
few, but those few were not necessarily the
rich. The strong class feeling that is now a
marked characteristic of English higher educa
tion was of much later growth.
In the fine fleur of the aristocracy manners
at all periods have been considered of very first
importance. This fact indicates better than any
thing could the quality of their power and of
their position. A very large majority of the
human race are dazzled by superficial charac
teristics in their fellow -men, and are ready to
succumb at once to the charms of discreet and
attractive manners. It requires a fairly high
standard of education to be discriminating enough
to see through the exterior, to pierce the gilded
shell and reach the husk. A gentility of manner
may be natural or assumed, but it may also be
of considerable use as a weapon in imposing
the authority of a domineering class. The poor,
the unlettered, those whose speech is coarse and
who have no conception of the niceties of deport
ment and the polished urbanity of the drawing-
room stand in immediate awe of a fine gentleman.
They surrender at once to what in their ignorance
they suppose is a superior force. All along the
aristocracy have felt this power at their hand
easy for them to wield, more especially when
education was their monopoly. For that reason
they have made a speciality of assiduously culti-

42 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
vating manners sometimes highly elaborate, at
other times elaborately modest. " La fierte dans
les mani^res est la vice des sots."
The cult of manners was carried to an extreme
at the time when Locke protested and in his
treatise on Education urged parents not to beat
their children for " unfashionable carriage."
Unusual value was set on social accomplish
ments. The dancing -master received the largest
share of fees of tuition, and in the desire for
"good breeding" the mental education of the
boys tended to become neglected. The Public
Schools corresponded to the schools founded in
France and Germany during the seventeenth
century exclusively for the nobles, who were
taught subjects especially adapted for Court life.
The Provost of Eton was esteemed " not only a
fine gentleman himself but very skilled in the
art of making others so." There were teaching
establishments for fencing, riding, and dancing,
but music was evidently thought too difficult
a pursuit for a gentleman. A contemporary
treatise on education says, " Musick I think not
worth a gentleman's labor requiring much
Industry and Time to learn and little to lose it.
It is used chiefly to please others who may receive
the same gusto from a mercenary (to the per
fection of many of whom few gentlemen arrive)
at a very easy rate. I should rather advise sing
ing especially if you fear him subject to con
sumption." * The practice of talking Latin was
* " Of Education," 1699.

THE PAST 43
dying out, though we read of fines being imposed
at Westminster for talking English in hall or
school. Much time and attention had to be spent on
clothes, which were of the richest quality, and
very expensive. The writer of the " Gentleman's
Calling " (1705), protests, " So much cost so much
business goes to it that one may almost as cheaply
and easily rig out a ship as set out a gentleman
in his complete equipage ... a lively instance
it is of the multiplying faculty of vanity that can
improve Nature's simple necessity of covering
to such exorbitant excess and has nurst up the
first fig-leaves to such a luxuriant growth."
But the fineness of manner did not reach the
country gentry, for he seldom visited London,
and a journey abroad was for him a rare occur
rence. Although Macaulay's sketch of the seven
teenth-century squire may be exaggerated, he
must in his seclusion have led a rough and some
what boorish life. In spite of the rudeness
and coarseness of his habits, he prided himself
on being an aristocrat and on being able to trace
a long genealogy. There seems to have been
a great faith in the magic of good birth. Sir
Simon d'Ewes declared that he " ever accounted
it a great outward blessing to be well descended " ;
and of Colonel Hutchinson his wife writes, "his
great heart could never stoop to marrying into
so mean a stock."
Burnet writes very severely in his account of
the country gentry. "They are the worst in-

44 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
structed and least knowing of any of their rank
I ever went amongst. After they have forgot
their Catechism they acquire no new knowledge
but what they learn in plays and romances."
He also deplored the barbarous custom which
required for the honour of the house that none
should go out of it sober. He compares the
country gentry unfavourably with the trading
classes, whom he describes as " the best body
in the nation, generous, sober, and charitable."
Yet with all their want of polish and educa
tion, and in spite of their foolish conceit as to
their nobility of birth, they must undoubtedly
have been men of vigour and of great force of
character and natural gifts, untouched by any
educating machine which tries to turn out men
like coins from a stamp, and not emasculated by
the sybaritic habits that produce manikins.
The author of a " Gentleman's Calling " (1705)
had grave misgivings as to the use gentlemen
were making of their opportunities, though he
quite accepts their superior position. In his
preface he says, "I am to treat only of those
particular duties which are incumbent on you
as gentlemen and therein show you that con
sidered as such you have a calling and so free
you of that reproach and misery of being un
profitable burdens of the earth : and then evince
to you also that that calling is so far from
implying anything of real toil or uneasiness that
it is only an art of refining and sublimating your
pleasures rendering them more grateful and

THE PAST 45
exquisite and so will (if attended to) make good
to you in earnest your mistaken pretence to a
Life of sensuality and delight."
It is an attempt in fact to teach them how to
do nothing without harming others. "The Whole
Duty of Man," by the same author, was read
out to Eton boys every Sunday before chapel.*
With all its shortcomings the aristocracy was the
only class after the Restoration from which men
who were to fill high positions in the State were
drawn, and this is a consideration to be borne
in mind when comparing their position with that
of their successors to-day.
In the eighteenth century there is a more
noticeable contrast between the education and
capabilities of the few who came to the front
and the main body of the aristocracy which
remained in a hopeless state of ignorance.
It was an age of laxness and of coarseness, which
came to be exchanged later for pomposity and
excessive artificiality. But the aristocracy were
actually governing the country ; they were, there
fore, absorbed in politics, and this is the dis
tinguishing mark of the period. The commercial
spirit had not yet begun to make itself felt, and
though in individual instances^he love of material
gain was pronounced it was not a leading char
acteristic of the aristocracy as a class. The
short essay on Modern Education written by
Swift f was probably a mere note for what he
* Maxwell Lyte's " History of Eton College."
t Intelligencer, No. 9.

46 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
intended to be a larger work. His line of argu
ment is practically identical with that which the
present writer will endeavour to pursue in the
later chapters of this book. "The present scope
I would aim at," says Swift, " is to prove that
some proportion of human knowledge appears
requisite to those who by their birth or fortune
are called to the making of laws, and in a sub
ordinate way to the execution of them ; and that
such knowledge is not to be obtained without
a miracle under the frequent corrupt and sottish
methods of educating those who are born to
wealth or titles. ... I am come to this deter
mination that education is always worse in pro
portion to the wealth and grandeur of the
parents." The boy he declares "is taught from
the nursery that he must inherit a great estate
and has no need to mind his book, which is a
lesson he never forgets to the end of his life."
When the subject of modern education in the
twentieth -century sense is dealt with in later
chapters, the words of the eighteenth -century
satirist, with the exception perhaps of the expres
sion corrupt, might well be repeated. In com
menting on Swift's treatise Sir Walter Scott
writes in 1814, "It is a matter of important
remark that since the Continent has been shut
against wanderers of rank and wealth we have
seen symptoms of the revival of ancient learning
and discipline among our nobility and youths
of fortune."
Towards the end of the eighteenth century,

THE PAST 47
indeed, there were instances of a high intellectual
level being attained by some of those connected
with Government and part of London society,
and this influence even reached the country
squire. They had a good classical training as
well as a knowledge of foreign languages, and
they were cultivated in literature and art, as is
shown by the books and pictures they collected
and the houses they built.
It was the popularity of the aristocracy that
made it easy for them to retain the power in
their own hands. The voiceless people regarded
them with awe as beings who, for reasons they
could not explain, were destined to be elevated
above them. Whatever drama was being played
they were the chief actors ; they were, in fact,
the only people who counted. The same names
recur again and again, the same few families
intimately associated together seem to hold in
their hands the guiding reins of political, social,
and executive power. " They were fiery if not
laborious politicians ; well read gentlemen for the
most part ; and sportsmen every inch of them." *
The quarrels of these patricians had a national
significance : to read of them is to read history.
The nobility were not, strictly speaking, an
isolated class, and had never at any time gone the
length of claiming for themselves immunity from
taxation. Their sons, except the eldest, descended
into the ranks of commoners, and they were
indistinguishable from the rest of the gentry.
* " George III. and Charles Fox," Sir George Trevelyan.

48 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
The line of demarcation, as now, was not between
the titled nobility and the commoners, but
between the aristocracy or leisured class, who
were educated, and the people, who were sub
servient workers, because at that time they were
uneducated. Although the idea of democracy was, as yet,
unknown, there were always a few bold spirits
who were ready to expose and to ridicule the
preposterous pretensions of their social superiors.
An amusing skit appears in the Gentleman's
Magazine of 1739, in the form of proposals for
amending the Ten Commandments in favour of
the governing class. For instance, the Sixth
Commandment is declared to have been " miser
ably perverted by a set of cowardly, low-spirited,
superstitious expositors who make it criminal
even in men of Spirit and Quality to do justice
to themselves and their characters by punishing
the ill manners of any little dirty Poltroon that
shall presume to affront them by running him
through ye body, beating out his brains, or any
other such ways and means as have in all ages
been thought reasonable and reputable to secure
the Regard due to their Rank and Fortune and
chastise the insolence of their inferiors." This
Commandment could, therefore, only be violated
by " any person below the degree of a Gentle
man bearing a coat of arms for three descents,"
whereas in the case of " any Nobleman or Gentle
man " a similar deed was to be considered only
as manslaughter. The Seventh Commandment

THE PAST 49
might be broken with impunity by " People of
Figure and Fortune whose exuberance of Blood
and Riches may require such expedients to reduce
them to a sober degree of mediocrity and cool
ness." Any " little pittiful Rogue " committing
some petty theft was to be deemed guilty of a
breach of the Eighth Commandment, but " this
shall not be construed to extend to people of
higher stations of Life nor to those greater
articles of Loss and Gain which may chance to
be in dispute between them." The Ninth Com
mandment was not to extend to " Court
Favourites, Royal Minions, First Ministers,
Secretaries of State, Privy Counsellors, Decy-
pherers, Spies, Pimps and Informers."
It is an elaborate satire on what was then,
as now, a fact that there is one law for the
rich and another for the poor. But it is interest
ing as showing that some, anyhow, were under no
delusion as to the gross injustices of a society
where rank and privilege counted for so much.
Historians dwell with enthusiasm on the
amount of labour gratuitously accomplished by
the upper classes, and expatiate on the remark
able phenomenon of a class possessing all the
means of enjoyment and luxury, yet devoting
themselves to " the painful drudgery and bond
age of public life." * But so long as they were
certain of preferment, of high appointments, and,
consequently, of power, popularity, and fame,
so long as they were assisting to maintain the
* See " England in the Eighteenth Century," Lecky.
4

50 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
dominance of their own class, there is nothing
the least surprising, or indeed remarkable, in
gentlemen preferring work of the most interesting
character to empty idleness. We can note to-day
when their chances of obtaining, as a matter
of course, high positions in the public service
are rapidly diminishing, what was supposed to
be their disintgtested desire for public service
is noticeably decreasing. No doubt by this
service in the eighteenth century they did much
to prevent the management of affairs passing into
the hands of reckless adventurers, but again
it may be said the prizes made it well worth
their while.
Moreover, it must not be forgotten that there
were a large number of sinecures reserved for
them, in the enjoyment of which they received
a high salary without having to perform any
duties at all. Connected with the Customs alone
there were no less than 196 absolute sinecures
in the gift of the First Lord of the Treasury,
the united income of which amounted to £42,000.*
The Chief Justices in Eyre with no duties to
perform received £4,000 a year each, the Clerk
of the Pells £3,000, the Clerk of the Parlia
ments £5,000, the Lord Warden of the Cinque
Ports £5,000, and there were Tellers of the
Exchequer, Paymasters of Marines, Registrars
of the Chancery of Barbadoes, Rangers of Royal
Forests, a King's Turnspit, who was a Member
of Parliament, and a host of other well-paid
* " England in the Eighteenth Century," Lecky.

THE PAST 51
sinecures in Scotland and Ireland as well as
England.* Public life was, therefore, not sheer
drudgery for the gentleman.f As a result of the
report of the Select Committee in 1817, the
Government were compelled to reduce a number
of these sinecures, and their gradual abolition
was continued in subsequent years.
Statesmen of the first half of the eighteenth
century were deeply tainted with treachery and
duplicity, and corruption in political affairs was
rife. Some of the professions were degraded
in order to form lucrative posts for the younger
members of the aristocratic families, and the
representative character of Parliament was
utterly perverted by the multiplication of nomi
nation boroughs.
* Walpole's " History of England " and Report of Select
Committee on Finance, 1817.
t An instance may be given of a family which in 1830
received remuneration from public funds in the following
manner : — Per Annum.
The noble Earl held a Tellership of the £
Exchequer  2,700
A Clerkship of the Crown in Chancery 1,105
His son, Deputy Teller of the Exchequer 1,000
Clerk to the Privy Council  2,000
Another son, a pension  350
Commissionership of Bankrupts and
Receiver of the Court of the Duchy
of Lancaster ... ...  850
Another son, Treasurership of the Govern
ment of Malta  1,560
A daughter, pension  900
Another daughter, pension  250
— " Our Old Nobility," Howard Evans.

52 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
In the House of Commons there was, after
1710, a high property qualification for members.
They had to possess a certain estate of land ;
in the case of knights of the shire £500, and in
the case of burgesses £300. In addition to this
candidates had to bear the burden of the official
expenses of elections, which grew rapidly during
the eighteenth century. Parliament was thus
solely representative of the upper class, whose
power continued to increase.* But it may be
observed here that, when it came to the struggle
over the great Reform Bill, some of the chief
aristocratic borough owners and many peers of
old creation were on the side of the people,
while the latest creations were among the most
obstinate opponents of progress.
In the Peerage Bill of 1719 an attempt was
made to convert the nobility definitely into a
separate caste. Had it been carried it would have
made the House of Lords an almost unchange
able body, entirely beyond the control of King
or Ministers or Commons, by strictly limiting
the number of peers which might be created.
It originated, however, from party interest rather
than aristocratic exclusiveness, as the Whigs
feared their majority in the Upper House might
be overthrown by the creation of Tory peers.
But anyhow the attempt failed.
The nobility had in their hands the preponder
ance of both wealth and influence, and a great
deal was made of the pomp and pretensions of
* " The Village Labourer," J. L. and Barbara Hammond.

THE PAST 53
rank. Their children, however, were still very
much neglected, and left to the mercy of servants,
who in those days were of a very coarse type.
On the other hand, the level of learning was
high for boys, if we may judge by Chesterfield's
son, who was taught Latin, Greek, French,
history, and geography before he was nine. But
in the Public Schools a greater laxity seems to
have become prevalent. " The general tendency
of society towards later hours for rising and
for going to bed had also affected Eton, and the
increase in the number of boys belonging to the
aristocratic class may, to some extent, account
for the great extension for the time allowed for
recreation." * Peers, sons of peers, and baronets
sat in the stalls in the College Chapel elevated
above their schoolfellows. But the custom of
the previous century of inscribing the names of
noblemen at the head of their class, whether
they deserved it or not, was no longer continued.
At the Universities the gold tuft or tassel
which was worn by noblemen on their caps
as a distinguishing mark became proverbial.
The expression " tuft-hunters " came into general
use, and was applied to snobs, long after the
gold tuft itself had disappeared. At Oxford
and Cambridge students of noble families,
who were often attended by, French tutors,
were still exempted from any, examinations
for their degree ; they were not allowed
to enter into the competition for honours
* " History of Eton College," Sir Maxwell Lyte.

54 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
presumably because it was feared that they would
as a rule fail to distinguish themselves. They
were not even compelled to attend college
lectures. By this means a clique was created
composed of youths who despised learning, idled
their time, frequented Newmarket, and contracted
heavy debts. In order to avoid this vicious
system, many parents sent their sons on the
grand tour.* But a contemporary writer in a
defence of the Universities declares that " of late
years it has been the fashion to send many of
our young nobility and gentry to foreign univer
sities, where their education is completed by
sending them home coxcombs and atheists." f
After the uncouth roughness of the Walpole
period, manners again were studied, and an
attempt was made to introduce greater refine
ment. There was a circle possessed of " the
distinguishing diction that marks the man of
fashion, a certain language of conversation that
every gentleman should be master of." $ It
reminds one of the absurd books which appear
even now telling us how " ladies and gentle
men " pronounce certain words, and what words
should be avoided by those who desire to be
thought " ladies and gentlemen."
The changes in fashion of dress even of men,
if closely studied, would be an interesting
exposure of the varying forms which vanity has
* "Coke of Norfolk and his Friends," A. M. W. Sterling.
t The Gentleman's Magazine, 1798.
\ " Social England," ed. by H. D. Trail and J. S. Mann.

THE PAST 55
taken. The evolution of dress is only the out
ward side of the evolution of manners, habits,
and general status. The whole idea of expensive
dressing arose from a desire on the part of the
leisured class, which dates from very early times,
to show in as pronounced a way as possible that
they could not be confounded with the working
class ; to wear something, in fact, in which it would
be impossible to do any manual work. Hence
the wigs, ruffs, embroidered coats and waistcoats,
silk stockings, gold buckles. This rather crude
form of ostentation reached a very extravagant
pitch in the middle of the eighteenth century,
when eccentricities of costume became pre
posterous and great importance was attached to
dress. It was the time of the "macaronis " and
" jessamies," and men's costume was commented
on as much as women's. " What ! did he address
you in a coat not worth looking iat? What a
shabby wretch," says Evelina's partner at a
dance. But no fashion is unchanging. The
elaborate finery was gradually discarded by
gentlemen whose costume became of a simpler
cut and a soberer hue, till, in mid-Victorian days,
the frock-coat of the duke and the shopwalker
were of the same cut, the earl and the waiter
began to wear the same evening attire, and the
county gentleman and farmer were indistinguish
able in appearance.
The rise of democracy, the incidents in town
and country connected with industrial unrest,
and the growing class animosity no doubt

56 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
influenced the gentleman in desiring, anyhow
out of doors in the street and the highway, to
avoid being signalised by his apparel as a
privileged and, in his own estimation, superior
being. On what we should consider a small income
a gentleman could afford more display in the
eighteenth century than he does now. The
" County Gentleman's Vademecum " (1717) gives
the annual expenses of a nobleman's family of
twenty -five to thirty persons as £1,200 to £1,500,
but the wages of twenty servants only amounted
to £170 a year. The system of vails was the
custom. " You'll find all the servants drawn up
in the passage like a file of musketeers, from the
house servant down to the lowest livery servant,
and each of them holds his hand out to you in
as deliberate a manner as the servants in our
inns on a like occasion."
The difficulty of travelling and of getting pro
visions prevented journeys into the country from
London from being fashionable. When a duke
proposed to journey into Sussex, in 1746, word
was sent from London that keepers and persons
who knew the holes and sloughs should come to
meet his grace with lanterns and long poles to
help him on his way. When house parties did
assemble they stayed for months at a time. In
town balls, assemblies, and masquerades were
popular ; Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and the Pantheon
were the rage. An attempt was made to stop
masquerades j but Mrs. Pendarves writes, in

THE PAST 57
1727 : " Masquerades are not to be forbid, but
there is to be another entertainment barefaced
which are balls." A fashionable wedding is a
society function to which we have grown accus
tomed. Converting our churches into drawing-
rooms for a whispering, inquisitive, dressed-up
afternoon party does not strike us as it did our
ancestors when the custom first came in. Every
one, we are told, spoke against it as the most
shocking thing in the world. "A public wed
ding ! " Miss Burney exclaims ; " oh, what a
gauntlet for any woman of delicacy to run ! "
Of the various watering-places where the
fashionable assembled the most frequented was
Bath, where Pope wrote that all the morning
was spent in " How d'ye do's? " all the afternoon
in asking, "What's trumps?"
There is really very little appreciable change.
The Duke now does not stick in the mud, but
has a punctured tyre. Visits do not last months,
but only a few days, because modern invention
in methods of conveyance has produced the itch
of restlessness in those who have nothing to do.
Bath is too near, too old-fashioned, too middle-
class ; Marienbad, Schwalbach, Pau, &c., attract
their annual pilgrims for the moment. But the
intention, the outlook, the routine is unchanged.
We may claim, however, in the twentieth century
to be getting rid of some of the coarser forms of
dissoluteness. Through the eighteenth century gambling and
drinking continued to be marks of a gentleman.

58 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
and in the earlier part of the nineteenth century
the state of the marriage laws, together with their
own want of sobriety, led many young men of
good family to ruin their lives by entering into
secret and irregular unions in churches where
no licence or formalities were required. The
extreme severity of class distinctions, and the
close watch kept by parents to prevent children
marrying beneath their station, only had the
effect of encouraging clandestine marriages. At
the end of the eighteenth century, in spite
of many noteworthy exceptions, society in
general reached the high -water mark of
depravity. Conjugal fidelity was sneered at as
out of fashion, and Chesterfield, in his letters,
instructs his son in the art of seduction as part
of a polite education.
Religion was despised and church-going con
demned. The prominent statesmen of the time
were nearly all unbelievers in any form of
Christianity. In the upper class " every one
laughs," said Montesquieu on his visit to England,
"if one talks of religion." „
The Methodist movement was largely respon
sible for the religious revival which helped to
transform the whole tone of English society.
The French Revolution, among its many far-
reaching effects, also had a sobering influence on
the British aristocracy ; and after the Napoleonic
wars, and the consequent misery and priyation
which they brought in their wake, there was a
change in the moral atmosphere and a reaction

THE PAST 59
against artificiality and excessive frivolity.
There arose a wave of humanitarian, philan
thropic sentiment, and a desire to curb grossness
and immorality, and to curtail the incessant
round of gaiety. Promenades and masquerades,
which had been very popular, came to an end ;
Ranelagh and the Pantheon were closed, and
popular feeling became excited against gambling
in high society ; Chief Justice Kenyon declared
that he would set in the pillory, any who
were brought before him for gambling, " though
they be the first ladies in the land." Gill-
ray caricatured two well-known ladies, whose
faro banks were notorious, as " Pharaoh's
daughters " standing in the pillory, bejewelled
and dressed up in all their finery. Neither
gambling nor debt have been condemhed as
inconsistent with the proper conduct of a gentle
man, whose code of honour has always been
special and distinctive. There is no need to discuss
this as an ethical problem, because all codes of
honour are arbitrary and relative to people, time,
and place. The point to be noticed is that his
code was different, and its violation was met by
particular treatment.
The duel existed as a means of settling
differences which arose from the infringement
of this unwritten social law. No record of
a duel occurs before the sixteenth century,
and they were rare before the reign of
James I. But in the eighteenth century they
became very frequent, and in the reign of

60 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
George III. 172 were fought, 91 being attended
with fatal results. Famous duels toak place
among the leading men of the day, such as the
duels between the Duke of Hamilton and Lord
Mohun, described by Thackeray in " Esmond " ;
Byron and Mr. Chaworth, in which the latter
was killed ; Charles J. Fox and Mr. Adams, the
Duke of York and Colonel Lennox, W. Pitt and
George Tierney, George Canning and Lord
Castlereagh, the Duke of Wellington and Lord
Winchelsea, and many others. The practice con
tinued in the nineteenth century until the force
of public opinion suppressed it. The Prince
Consort attempted unsuccessfully to institute
courts of honour, but the important amendment
to the articles of war,* which was eventually
incorporated in the consolidated Army Act of
1879, was the chief means of putting an end to
this uncivilised custom. Duels could only be
fought by gentlemen against gentlemen ; no mean
individual could challenge a gentleman to a duel.
It was a class distinction which was doomed to
die out in a more democratic age.
The ebb and flow of aristocratic morals and
manners in successive periods resembles very
much the course of life of a man who is con
tinually trying to reform ,himself and as often
slipping back into bad habits. This instability
* "Every person who shall fight or promote a duel or
take any steps thereto, or who shall not do his best to
prevent a duel shall if an officer be cashiered or sufiEer such
other penalty as a general court-martial may award. "

THE PAST 61
is characteristic of a class which is without
ballast and devoid of any guiding motive or pur
pose, except, perhaps, a selfish desire to cling to
power, and it is caused by the action and reaction
of outside elements on a rudderless barque.
As the nineteenth century opens it is the
landed gentry who come conspicuously to the
front and occupy the most prominent positions.
Many large properties had been built up out of
the lands of the dissolved monasteries in the
sixteenth century, and now, by a series of
Enclosure Acts, passed during the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries, further- augmenta
tions were made to the landed possessions of
the aristocracy. While the old English village
community began to disappear, the position of
the landlords was greatly strengthened. They
began to pose as proud, beneficent, and generous
patrons, who had acquired their possessions by
acts of pure justice ,and wise forethought, and
whom Providence rightly favoured as the proper
guardians of the land of Britain. No historian
cared to record the actual process through which
they had come by their vast estates. The cry
of the dispossessed and downtrodden poor of
the countryside was carefully stifled, so that even
those who inherited the estates knew nothing of
the facts, and the outside public were led to
believe that somehow for countless ages these
acres of landed property had been handed down
from generation to generation by legitimate right.
The truth at last is beginning to be un-

62 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
earthed. Documents showing acts of deliberate
robbery, of petty tyranny, of oppression and
cruelty are being brought , to the light of day,
and will help to demolish one of the last super
stitions which surround the landed aristocracy.*
It must not be supposed that during these two
centuries — that is to say, from the early seven
teenth to the early nineteenth century, the aris
tocracy was a harmonious and united body,
calmly ruling the country without internal dis
sensions. There were at all times, as is well
known, sharp divisions which split fashionable
society and all men of note into two antagonistic
camps. The Cavaliers and Roundheads in Stuart
times settled their differences on the field of
battle, and though the small body of the nobility
that existed in those days was almost entirely on
the Royalist side, there were many gentlemen
in the social sense who could be counted among
the Parliamentarians. In early Georgian days
equally serious differences divided the Jacobites
from the Hanoverians. The adherents of the
cause of the exiled King and his successors wer?
engaged in incessant schemes and secret machina
tions for undermining the position gained by
their opponents. Society was honeycombed with
plots and intrigues. The upholders of the Pro
testant faith and constitutional monarchy were
at daggers drawn with those who had hopes of
a restoration of the Stuarts. But after Culloden
the Jacobites were reduced to a very small band.
* S ee " The Village Labourer," J. L. and Barbara Hammond.

THE PAST 63
The House of Hanover was generally accepted,
and the aristocracy began to close its ranks. The
Jacobite families could not remain any longer
excluded from their share in the government of
the country. They were a formidable body ;
they had great influence, and when their cause
was to all practical purposes defeated they
accepted the inevitable, and hastened back to
claim their part in political administration and
executive power.
Having united on the question of the succession
to the throne, the upper class divided up once
more into two opposing factions struggling for
supreme control under the names of Whigs and
Tories. Though civil war was not to break out
again, the social as well as the political cleavage
was deep and almost unbridgeable. There was
no intercourse between political opponents.
Their hatred of one another was genuine and
bitter. But whichever party was in power, it
was aristocratic rule. Those families who had
been Jacobite until the defeat of the Pretender
joined the Tories, while the Whigs, by espousing
the cause of freedom and opening their ranks
more widely for the entrance of the middle class,
were preparing the field for a new force. Their
progressive and enlightened views and their
courageous handling of political questions made
the Whig leaders, aristocrats though they were,
very exceptional. They were ready to prepare
for the sacrifice of the supremacy of their own
class to a more representative form of govern-

64 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
ment, in which the people, hitherto entirely ex
cluded, could in some measure participate. Had
they known what this would eventually lead to,
fewer, perhaps, of them would have been so
ardent. In the early part of Queen Victoria's
reign, although the Court at first favoured the
Whigs, the Prince Consort tried to unite the
opposing forces against the new democracy,
which was just beginning to show signs of
life. " The leading Whigs," the Prince noted,
" were very much dissatisfied with the company
they find themselves thrown into and alarmed at
the progress of democracy." * And, with evident
satisfaction, he finds Lord Derby, on his resigna
tion in 1852, " was ready to support, as far as
he could, any administration which was sincerely
anxious to check the growth of democracy." *
The vision, however distant, of a new force
which was not aristocratic, and which, moreover,
was likely to be strongly anti-aristocratic, was
more alarming than any internal differences
which had divided the governing class hitherto.
For nearly two centuries they had been without
rivals. That the people whom they had so
generously but effectually dominated should show
signs of insubordination must indeed have filled
them with the gravest apprehensions. The very
word " democracy " conveyed at first something
very much akin to revolution, specially in view of
the general awakening in Europe in 1848, and
the people were still referred to as " the mob."
* " Queen Victoria's Letters," vol. ii.

THE PAST 65
But whichever of the alternative Governments
were in power, every post was still exclusively
held by members of the upper class.
In order to illustrate the argument effectively,
the description of a few specimens of the govern
ing class would be more illuminating than
generalisations. But there is a particular diffi
culty about presenting a portrait of a gentleman
at any given period in the past. If a well-known
and prominent figure is chosen, it will be found
at once that his qualities and defects make him
in some way exceptional ; he cannot be taken
as representing a type, and he is not an average
specimen. If he is not well known and promi
nent, it is rare to find sufficient material about
him to make even a sketch.
For instance, dissoluteness and unscrupulous -
ness may have been common enough charac
teristics of the Jacobean Court, but Buckingham,
who was not lacking in these, had individual
traits, such as his self-confidence, his reckless
ness, and his masterfulness, which made him
altogether exceptional. Or take a man at the
opposite extreme — Sir John Eliot, whose
character constitutes, perhaps, the nearest
approach to the perfect ideal of a gentleman
that can be found in the history of those times,
" with a mind exquisitely cultivated, and
familiar with poetiy and learning of his day,
a nature singularly lofty and devout, a fearless
and vehement temper." * His refinement, his
* " History of the English People," J. R. Green.
5

66 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
courage and eloquence were most striking and
unusual. An ideal example is not a typical one.
Charles I. was notably a gentleman, but it would
be an unwarrantable insult on the gentlemen of
the Stuart epoch to say that duplicity, meanness,
and moral cowardice were common character
istics among them. An enthusiast, in his desire
to defend the aristocracy, might point to the
Duke of Marlborough. But there was nothing in
the least typical about him. Both his marvellous
powers and his deplorable greed and sordidness
were unparalleled. Bolingbroke, again, is spoken
of as a typical aristocrat. His want of depth
and power, his superficiality as a statesman and
as a philosopher, and his profligacy in some
measure warrant this description. But the
peculiar part he played, and the signal failure of
his career, make it difficult to select him as an
average specimen. Walpole is far too distin
guished to quote as an instance of what country.
gentleman of that time were capable of doing,
though, as with them, his real love was for " the
table, the bottle, and the chase " ; and Bute,
talented though he was, is too notorious to single
out for portraiture.
If the object were to eulogise the aristocracy
and to show what splendid figures could be found
among them, no finer instance could be given
than Coke of Norfolk, of whom we are told :
" There was in his character a remarkable sim
plicity and a complete lack of egotism which
was infinitely lovable , . . devoid of all self-

THE PAST . 67
assurance with regard to his own capabilities,
he was decided in his views and unalterably
consistent in his code of action. A passionate
love of justice and of fair play ; an unbroken
attachment to civil and religious freedom ; a
hatred of all taint of oppression and coercion,
of all intolerance and bigotry— these were the
leading characteristics of his nature." *
If, on the other hand, one desired to cast
obloquy on the aristocracy, instances in the
eighteenth century would not be far to seek.
One might describe the Duke of Wharton, whose
viciousness was literally indescribable, or Simon,
Lord Lovat, of whom Macaulay says that " his
tory hardly recalls a baser figure." But this
would be manifestly unfair. We are not con
cerned with hopeless profligates any more than
with rare paragons. There are scoundrels in
every class and in every period. The protagonist
of the aristocracy might instance the inhumanity
of Eldon to show the result of power being placed
in the hands of a man of plebeian birth, or go
back to Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, as a
noteworthy instance of an adventurer of low
origin. It is unnecessary to press the point further.
The same objection would arise at a later date
were any attempt made to illustrate the argument
by character sketches of, say, Wellington,
Canning, or Melbourne. It is only in contem
porary society, that types can be properly
* " Coke of Norfolk and his Friends," A. M. W. Stirling.

68 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
described, because with abundance of material
a sort of composite photograph can be produced
without any one individual being isolated for
dissection. It is easy to overestimate the services of the
aristocracy in the period we have briefly sur
veyed, because in every direction they are to be
found in the forefront ; their deeds of prowess
and statesmanship are writ large in our history.
One is liable to forget that they did not reach
their eminent positions in an open field, but that
it was with only a very limited number of their
own kind that they had to compete.
It is due, perhaps, to the customs of their
age and to the position they held that they
seem to stand out as more cultivated, more
forceful, stronger, and more spirited than their
descendants, who were left to fight against
the new force of awakening democracy in a
fortress which was gradually to be stripped of
its most effective armaments.

CHAPTER III
THE CLUB
Power and popularity of the governing class — Origin of
the Club — Mug-house Clubs — ^White's — Almack's — The
macaroni — The beau — The dandy — Other clubs — Their
exclusiveness — Enormous extension of clubs in the
nineteenth century — Contrasted with the cafe — Anti-
domestic character of clubs — Their social and political
influence.
The complete monopoly of power by the aris
tocracy which grew from the Stuart period
onward, and was an accomplished fact at the
end of the eighteenth century, can be accounted
for by the decline in the sovereign's personal
rule and the absence as yet of any organised
democratic sentiment. The nineteenth century
shows the gradual mitigation of the authority
of a governing upper class, but at the same
time the process has been slower than might
be expected, and has been checked by the strong
influence of the aristocracy over public opinion.
That the aristocratic ideal of government should
be of such tough growth as to survive till to-day
may seem surprising, in view of the saner and
more rational opinions which have gained
ground during the last fifty years. But it must

70 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
be remembered, that in addition to the very con
servative nature of British public opinion, high
society has always been popular, and has been
guarded and defended by organised bodies
interested in the conservation of the older method
of oligarchic government. The nobility, itself is
a species of association prepared for mutual
defence. But there was another sort of com
bination or union of individuals which has been
utilised with considerable effect.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century a
social institution in the shape of " The Club "
came to the front, and was very rapidly popu
larised. Throughout the century clubs increased
in numbers, and were destined to exercise a
strong influence not only on the lives but on
the position of the particular class with which
we are here concerned. Before the quality of
that influence is analysed, a word may be said
about the origin of these organisations which
have played, and still play, such a prominent
part in the life of a gentleman.
No doubt there were at all times meeting-places
for men who were associated together, either by
friendly relations or by professional interests.
" All celebrated clubs were founded upon eating
and drinking, which are points where most men
agree, and in which the learned and the illiterate,
the dull and the airy, the philosopher and the
buffoon can all of them bear a part." * In fact,
the club had its origin in the tavern.
* " Clubs and Club Life in London," John Timbs (1872),
from which other facts in this chapter are taken.

THE CLUB 71
In the early seventeenth century Shakespeare,
Beaumont, Fletcher, and Raleigh met at the
" Mermaid." Ben Jonson and his friends were
to be found at the Devil Tavern. " We went
to Woods's (our old house for clubbing)," says
Pepys, "and there we spent till ten at night."
The Civil Club was started in the City three
years after the Great Fire. The members met
at the Old Ship Tavern, and appear to have
first clubbed together for the sake of mutual
aid and support.
There were also mug-house clubs, the chief
of which was in Long Acre. This is described
in "A Journey Through England" (1722):
" Every gentleman hath his separate mug, which
he chalks on the table where he sits as it is
brought in . . . the room is so diverted with
songs and drinking from one table to another
to one an,others' Healths that there is no room
for Politicks or anything that can sqw'r con
versation." All the same, the mug-house clubs
were hotbeds of the most virulent political
wrangling. In some cases clubs were formed
chiefly for the indulgence of debauchery and
prof anen ess. The most notable of these was the
Hell Fire Club, of which the Duke of Wharton
was a leading spirit. A Bill was actually intro
duced into the House of Lords for the suppression
of this club. A number of other clubs formed
in the seventeenth century served only a
temporary purpose, but in the following century
meeting-places became more definitely organised

72 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
for social purposes, and clubs were instituted
which have survived to this day.
White's, in St. James's Street, still one of the
foremost London clubs, was established as a
coffee-house in 1698. During the eighteenth
century it became a recognised meeting-place
for the aristocrats, men of fashion, and poli
ticians, and was instituted as a regular club
about 1730. It was principally a gaming club
where the play was very high. Lord Carlisle
lost £10,000 in one night, and Sir John Bland
" t'other night exceeded what was lost by the
late Duke of Bedford, having at one period of
the night lost two and thirty thousand pounds."
Sir John eventually shot himself, and there were
other instances of suicides as the result of
gambling debts. " I have heard," says Swift in
his Essay on Modern Education, " that the late
Earl of Oxford never passed by White's [the
common rendezvous of infamous sharpers and
noble cullies], without bestowing a curse upon
that famous academy as the bane of half the
English nobility."
" The Dilettanti " was a dining club which was
started about the same time as White's. The
majority of the original members were " young
noblemen or men of wealth and position between
twenty and thirty years of age brimming over
with fun and animal spirits." Horace Walpole
said of them that the nominal qualification is
having been In Italy and the real one being drunk.
Almack's, in Pall Mall, founded by a Scot named

THE CLUB 73
Macall, "under the patronage of twenty -seven
leading men of fashion," became very famous.
Here, again, gambling was the chief occupation.
"The gaming at Almack's," writes Walpole in
1770, "which has taken the pas of White's, is
worthy the decline of our enipire or common
wealth which you please. The young men of
the age lose ten, fifteen, twenty thousand pounds
in an evening there. Lord S  , not one and
twenty, lost £11,000 there last Tuesday but
recovered it by one great hand at hazard." They
set to work very seriously at these gambling
orgies. The gamesters took off their embroidered
clothes and donned frieze greatcoats. They put
on pieces of leather to save their lace ruffles ; and
to guard their eyes from the light and to prevent
tumbling their hair wore high -crowned straw
hats with broad brims and adorned with flowers
and ribbons ; they also wore masks to conceal
their emotions when playing at quinz. Each
gamester had a small stand by him to hold his
tea, or a wooden bowl with an edge of ormolu
to hold the rouleaus of £50 each. Our twentieth-
century gamesters who begin their bridge in the
morning do not quite push their play to this
extreme. In addition to rank and fashion,
Almack's contained members of intellect and
culture, and many of the best-known men of
the day were habitues. It was known later as
Goosetree's, and Pitt and his friends were well-
known figures at the gambling tables. The
original " Macaronis " were members of Almack's,

74 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
which came to be known as the Macaronis' Club.
Many men of political prominence were among
them at first, and Charles James Fox was looked
upon as their leader. But later on the type
deteriorated, and the term " macaroni " was
used for the fast and dressy young men of the
day. The Universal Magazine for 1772 describes
a macaroni. " He is the sworn foe of all learning,
and even sets simple orthography at defiance,
for all learned fellows who can spell and
write sense are either queer dogs or poor
rogues, both of which he hatps mortally."
His successor, the beau, was also a club pro
duce, and not a very attractive figure either,
" not high born, nor rich, nor very, good-
looking, nor clever, nor agreeable, but generally
middle-aged men with large appetites, who sat
in White's bay window, swore a good deal, never
laughed, had their own particular slang, looked
hazy, after dinner, and had most of them been
patronised by the Prince Regent or Beau Brum-
mel." They came also to be known as dandies.
Their headquarters was Wattier's, a great gam
bling house that only, lasted a dozen years or so.
Their fame did not rest solely on social and
sartorial distinction, they had a certain weight
in the political world. George IV., who was in
a great state on the eve of his coronation because
the Queen had expressed her intention of coming
to the Abbey, inquired what view the dandies
took. He was informed that it was not favour
able to him. "I care nothing for the mob,"

THE CLUB 75
exclaimed the King, "but I do for the dandies."
Accordingly, he propitiated them by providing a
special breakfast for them in one of the rooms of
the House of Lords on the day of the ceremony.
The so-called leader of fashion is a club type
which continues to exist with very little variation,
whether he is called a macaroni, beau, dandy, fop,
blade, swell, masher, nob, dog, toff, card, or blood.
Almack's * was converted into Brooks's. Fox
made it his headquarters, and the mark of a
fashionable Whig was to live at Brooks's, " where
politics were sown and in the House of Commons
where the crop came up." f The great Whig
Club stood on the opposite side of St. James's
Street to White's, which was the headquarters
of the Tories. Both of them have now lost their
pronouncedly political character. The Carlton
and Reform, founded in the early thirties, took
their place as political centres. Now, again, the
latter is hardly in touch with modern Radicalism,
and other political clubs have arisen.
Boodle's, Arthur's, the Beefsteak were all of
eighteenth -century origin, and a great many
others were founded soon afterwards. Some had
curious origins, like the Roxburghe Club, to
which many members of the high nobility
belonged. It claimed its foundation from the
sale of the library of the Duke of Roxburghe
in 1812. The avowed object of the club was the
reprinting of rare pieces of ancient literature.
* A club with the same name has recently been established.
+ Horace Walpole.

76 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
But this was never carried out to any appre
ciable extent, and the chief characteristic of the
club was its expensive and elaborate dinners.
But in this respect it could hardly vie with
Crockford's,* where the cook received a salary
of £800 a year.
It was the great success of these first clubs
that created the vogue. Most of them in the
beginning were very exclusive socially. The
aristocrats and leading politicians, who, after all,
were for the most part aristocrats, kept the
election of members under their control. .Sur
geons, architects, and attorneys, and suchlike
professional folk were not admitted. In 1835 we
read, " Are there any literary men members of
White's? None, except Croker. They are con
sidered as vermin in the fashionable clubs." But
there were clubs for authors and men of science
and letters, such as the Royal Societies Club and
the Literary Club, founded by Sir Joshua
Reynolds and Dr. Johnson in 1764, and later
the Athenseum.
Gradually in Victorian times clubs came to be
founded for every conceivable object. There
were those devoted exclusively to the Services,
as a shelter had to be found for the vast number
of half -pay officers. There was an increase of
political clubs, a number of new sporting clubs,
artistic and bohemian clubs, clubs to meet the
social needs of professional men of all sorts,
ladies' clubs, and at last even working-men had
* Now the Devonshire Club.

THE CLUB 77
the audacity to start their own clubs. There is
now hardly room for the movement to go much
farther. It appears, therefore, that originally clubs were
simply convivial in their object and chiefly aristo
cratic in their membership, though men of letters
had their meeting-places as well. Gambling was
the main occupation in many of them, but this
was very much mitigated after the report of the
House of Commons Committee on gambling, of
which Lord Palmerston was chairman, and which
led to the closing of several of the worst houses.
But from the earliest time clubs were found
to be of immense value politically, and
later on the sporting world and various pro
fessional interests made use of them. So
far as the gentleman is concerned, the in
fluence of the club as a social institution,
whether it be a service club or a sporting club,
is very considerable. As democracy increased
its hold the tendency was not for the aristocratic
clubs to open their doors wider and renounce
their social prejudices, but for a larger number
of clubs to be founded. The man of letters,
the man with a profession, the middle-class com
mercial man did not go on hammering at the door
of White's, or Boodle's, or Brooks's, and does
not attempt to force an entrance into the Turf,
the Marlborough, the Bachelors', or the St.
James's. He has made his own club, and only
when he gets money and leisure has he any ambi
tion to be admitted into the more select houses.

78 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
Such has been the increase in number that
to-day in London alone there are no less than 108
houses described as " Principal Clubs." Only about
half a dozen of these were founded before the
nineteenth century. Over fifty are exclusively
or mainly social, and have between them a mem
bership of well over 50,000. There are forty-
four clubs with an annual subscription of £10
and over, and twenty -five have an entrance
subscription of £30 and over. Of these expen
sive clubs five are reserved for officers of the
Navy and Army.
Though many men are members of several
clubs, these figures help to show how the club
by its large extension has become a sort of
permanent national institution. Not only in
London is this the case, but to a minor extent in
the provinces also. This form of association
was far more quickly developed here than
on the Continent. But foreign countries have
now adopted the idea, borrowed the word,
and in European capitals a fair number of
clubs have been founded. Where any num
ber of British visitors meet together in a
holiday resort abroad there is quite sure to
be a club.
Our love of sports and games, for which cor
porate action is essential, will account largely
for the growth of a good many of these establish
ments in this country, and of course the general
rise in the standard of wealth of the community
made the spread of such a luxury possible.

THE CLUB 79
Moreover, we are by nature very sociable, and
we like joining with others for enjoyment as
well as for business. We have, perhaps, a special
talent for organising bodies of men for a special
purpose. On the other hand, except in the
famous case of Holland House, the political salon
has never flourished to any appreciable extent
in this country, nor have we ever developed the
free and easy intercourse of the cafe, which is
a well-known feature of continental life. Abroad
men of all stations frequent their favourite haunts,
where they are sure to find congenial company.
They seem to like the tavern and coffee-house
stage of club development, and probably prefer
it as being far more economical. With us the
cafe has never succeeded. There is nothing
between the stiff oppressive hotel and the stench
of the glaring public-house, with its absurd
arrangement of bars and saloons, and its hope
less discomfort. In their desire to establish some
common meeting-ground our upper classes have
shown that they know how to look after them
selves, as the palaces of Pall Mall and St. James's
Street will testify.
It would be interesting to know whether this
enormous extension of club life during the nine
teenth century has not been on the whole anti-
domestic in its operation. Were there no other
signs of this it might at first appear rash to come
to such a conclusion, for it can be argued that
bachelors are the chief frequenters of clubs, and
that, even for married men, the club can quite

80 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
well serve a useful purpose. Anyhow, it would
be difficult to estimate what number of married
men have been lured away from their homes by
the counter attractions of their clubs. It is, how
ever, likely that a comfortable and spacious
building, with its shaded lights, warm fires, noise
less waiters, handy drinks, large choice of news
papers, and general atmosphere of discreet
attention must attract the always rather materi
ally minded male, more especially if his home
contains any unusual number of the elements of
domestic strife. There are, however, many other
signs of the anti-domestic tendency of the age.
The multiplicity of restaurants, the increased
popularity of hotel life, and the facility for short
visits and frequent travel — all of these militate
against the hearth and home. Domesticity, in
short, is coming to be regarded more and more
as humdrum, because it is uneventful and quiet.
This is part of a huge fallacy that is captivating
society. Constant movement, constant change of
company, constant alteration of scene, constant
variety of pursuits, constant distractions give a
spurious sense of activity and prevent reflection,
a form of mental effort which so many quite
unconsciously spend their lives in trying to avoid.
Every one, indeed, supposes he is " doing more "
because he can move more rapidly. Whereas
it would be nearer the truth to say we accomplish
less, because our nervous energy and vitality are
being seriously impaired by the whirl and rush
of ceaseless mechanical motion.

THE CLUB 81
Many agencies may. have been at work to
produce the modern indifference to domestic ties.
But there can be little doubt that the club, which
has taught many men that outside their own
homes they could find comfort, good living, good
company, and good cheer, must have contributed
very materially to this marked change in our
social life. Nevertheless, some may claim that
this apparently anti-domestic inclination is only
the beginning of a co-operative method of
dealing with the problems of housekeeping and
domestic servants, and that the separate house
hold, with its unnecessary trouble and waste, is
to be absorbed in time by a system of co
operative households with an associated method
of catering and management, the home being
reserved for those who prefer privacy and
seclusion. But this is carrying speculation too
far into the future.
These wider considerations must be set aside,
as the object in introducing the subject of clubs
is only to show another sort of influence of a
more positive and noticeable description, which
is exercised by the best-known and more expen
sive establishments. Here it is that young men
learn how to make lives of idleness endurable,
and middle-aged bachelors become inured to the
barren routine of a vacant life. Had they not
this warm and comfortable retreat it is conceiv
able that some of them might have to exert them
selves to do something. As it is they while away
the hours playing cards, gossiping, and
6 .

82 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
associating with others who are also whiling
away the time with cards and gossip. Till at
last they get a general impression that the world
that matters consists only of such people together,
of course, with those of whom they read in the
sporting and society papers. The hurrying
throng they sometimes watch with an vacant stare
from the arm-chairs in the club windows are just
passing shadows, meaningless and outside the
focus of their narrow vision.
In their corporate capacity purely social clubs
have a markedly conservative tone and
influence. For in binding together men of
like views, they help to preserve obsolete ideas,
and give continued life to opinions of a past
generation. The young man who comes in and
sits on the fender in the club hall will hear the
topic of the hour discussed in a way he approves.
He would not join a club where he was bound to
hear opinions that constantly jarred on him, and
any one holding such opinions would not be
likely to be elected a member of his club. It is
this very strong social influence that makes the
club system of special interest and importance
in the development of moral, political, and intel
lectual ideas, and of habits and fashions. Outside
the openly political clubs, while some few may
claim to disseminate advanced notions and pro
gressive doctrines, there are very many more—
and they are the most powerful — whose unavowed
object it is to preserve the present social order
and oppose change. The inability of Brooks's

THE CLUB 83
and the Reform to keep in touch with advancing
radical and democratic opinion is very signifi
cant, and illustrates the essentially aristocratic
nature of the higher class club atmosphere.
Nothing consolidates a point of view, a spread
ing idea, a militant cause, or a passing fashion
so readily and so effectively as the association
in easy social intercourse of men of like opinion,
with a common interest and mutual sympathy.
Isolated individuals depending only on special
effort, and without the opportunity of coming
into contact with those of like mind, are deprived
of an easy means of obtaining encouragement in
their views, and of an engine for the spread of
these views, not necessarily by way, of deliberate
propaganda, but by the persistent force of united
action and common agreement. The gentlemen
of the day, apart from any deliberate political
action, can, by social pressure, which may even
be unintentional, set a very distinct tone, adopt
a fixed standard, and insist more or less on
certain opinions being held in their clubs, so
that it can be made extremely uncomfortable for
any one who neglects to adopt the tone, objects
to the standard, or refuses to accept the
opinions. As already stated, clubs have now spread to
all classes of the community. They each have
their particular complexion, characteristics, and
traditions. But there is a very great distinction
between a club for busy men of moderate means,
who spend their few hours of leisure in the

84 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
relaxation of friendly intercourse, and the club
for men who are well enough off to have little
or nothing to do. By far the strongest influence
will continue to be exerted by these superior
clubs for the leisured class, where precious hours
and days fall heavily on the hands of so many
idle men. Being select and exclusive, they
help to consolidate class divisions, because
membership depends on social position and
the possession of considerable means, and they
attempt to preserve intact a strongly conservative
and anti -progressive point of view. It is, in
fact, one of the many methods by which the
upper class are enabled to entrench themselves in
a position of aloofness ; and by the interchange
of opinions and the preservation of habits, both
social and mental, they can the more easily resist
any attack on their privileges. Thus it is that
their clubs, which have money tests and aristo
cratic leanings, are of more use to them than
perhaps they realise.

CHAPTER IV
THE OLD NOBILITY
Change of type — Mid- Victorian aristocracy — Their charac
teristics — Their manners — Their view of riches — Their
domestic life — Education — Decline of power — Rise of
middle class — Social changes — Aristocrat's reply to
attack on his caste.
Before we reach our contemporaries some atten
tion may be given to the immediately preceding
generations so as to illustrate the last transition
and the most recent change that has taken place
in the character of the governing class. Changes
in methods of government, the inventions and
discoveries that have revolutionised the indus
trial world, alterations in the style of art,
architecture, or literature can be all traced to
specific causes and attributed to distinct periods
and dates. But the consequent or concurrent
transformation in the personal characteristics of
the various social strata is more difficult to
detect. It is a continuous process to which each
succeeding generation contributes. It has no
abrupt commencement or termination, and only
becomes apparent after the lapse of time. You

86 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
cannot watch a plant growing, but you can see
that it has grown. A type arises, lasts for a
time, and then is superseded : it is practically
impossible to point to the date of its origin or
of its decline. But when with twentieth -century
eyes we look back on late nineteenth-century
society, to all of us, whether we are inclined to
discern an improvement or deterioration, any
how a marked change is apparent. It is true
that we may not be fair judges, as the light
of history is apt to give the softening and unifying
perspective which may make a distant view
pleasanter than it would be were its rugged
details inspected at close quarters. But the mid-
Victorian period is not so far back that we
cannot have some precise first-hand, or, any
how, second-hand, knowledge of an intimate and
personal kind than is possible with regard
to the time that is more remote from our
own day.
Democracy was gaining ground, but the spread
of popular education which was destined to be the
real stimulant to its growth and energy did not
take place till the seventies. The aristocracy,
therefore, though they had lost immediate con
trol over the House of Commons, were able still
to look upon the extension of the franchise with
equanimity. The privileged and prominent posi
tion they had held for centuries did not seem
to be in imminent danger. The people, not
yet articulate, subtaiitted to a large extent to
aristocratic rule. Though still guarding their

THE OLD NOBILITY 87
interests and convinced that their ascendancy,
was essential to the country's welfare, the aris
tocracy were no longer inclined, or, more
correctly speaking, they no longer dared to
be so rough and ready in their methods as their
predecessors had been. The awakening of the
people had begun. The rare sixpenny daily
paper which was handed round till it was worn
to shreds was, on the repeal of the Paper Duties
(1860), superseded by the penny daily. Informa
tion, if not knowledge, began to spread, and the
general public was no longer kept in entire
ignorance of what was taking place around
them. They were beginning to scrutinise more
closely the methods of their rulers, industrial
problems were becoming pressing, and men were
coming to understand something as to conditions
under which their fellows were living. It was
impossible for those in active political life to
ignore these considerations, although social
questions did not yet occupy anything like
the important place in the public eye that they
do now.
The aristocrats of mid-Victorian days were not
only still tolerated, but they were respected and
even admired. Generations of leisured living,
combined with great family traditions and
acknowledged responsibilities, which were under
taken with conscientiousness if not with ability,
produced a type which was often characterised by
refinement, high-mindedness, and nobility of dis
position. A certain distinction was the leading

88 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
note of this now almost extinct nobility. Dis
tinction is difficult to define, the more so
when one sees so few traces of it to-day. The
aristocracy of those days was not yet quite in
a false position, their assurance was therefore
easy and natural, and their ignorance safeguarded
them against the misgivings which a riper know
ledge of affairs might have produced. Such
ignorance nowadays is almost impossible, even
for the densest mind or the greatest recluse.
They did not require to hold themselves aloof
in order to preserve their identity. They had
no fear of being contaminated by mixing with
their fellow-men. Although they were rarely
intellectual, and the social needs of the nation
existed in a remote region they very seldom pene
trated, their sympathy and compassion had no
flavour or patronage. They were ready to meet
men as equals, or, anyhow, to seem to, and those
who came into personal contact with them
quickly succumbed to their charm. Such words
as " aristocrat," " nobility," " upper class ''
seldom passed their lips. Scientific sociology
did not trouble them, and they refused to acknow
ledge either in manner or speech that they
were privileged beings or a class apart, though
inwardly they were no doubt conscious of it,
and politically they used what power they had.
Socially, too, they remained very clannish, con
fining their choice on marriage, as a rule, to
members of their own caste. They knew they
had inherited certain responsibilities, but they

THE OLD NOBILITY 89
did not want this fact to give them artificial pre
tensions over their fellows. It would have been
bad manners, and would have made them uncom
fortable, and they hated to take what they would
have considered an unfair advantage.
With their own kind these aristocrats were
very strict and particular, making full allow
ances for every one else, with rarely any sugges
tion of superiority. Good manners were still
most important, but they were the good manners
which meant no " manner." What was vulgar,
flashy, and coarse was not loudly condemned,
but silently ignored. It was not a matter of
argument, but of instinct. If a man did not
recognise such things for himself, no power on
earth would convince him. Prices, investments,
and incomes were never mentioned. These were
sordid details which were taken for granted.
There was, no doubt, profligacy, extravagance,
and appreciation of wealth as in every other
age. But while the corruption and low standard
of morality in public affairs had been super
seded by a high level of personal integrity, the
glorification of riches and the mania for sense
less extravagance and ostentation were, as yet,
unknown. An instance of how riches were treated may
be given, though again it may be said in
quoting an instance we are more likely to hit
upon an exception than an example. But
Jowett's description of the Duke of Bedford, who
died in 1891, shows how absolutely untainted

90 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
with vulgar ostentation some of the mid-
Victorian aristocrats were : —
" He always retained in his personal habits
the simplicity of a poor man ; wealth was rather
an inconvenience to him. . . . He liked to do
for others what they were unable to do for
themselves ; to try, for example, experiments in
agriculture which were beyond the means of
ordinary persons. Yet he never valued himself
on his good deeds, but would rather apologise
for them. For he had a fixed opinion that it
is far easier to do harm than to do good, and
that doing good is usually more than counter
balanced by the attendant evil. It was a
favourite expression with him, ' He did as little
harm as he could help.' Sometimes when he
gave hundreds and thousands he would assume
the character of the receiver rather than the
conferrer of a favour. He would write that he
had ' scraped together ' the money, or would
apologise for the neglect of a post in answering
a request." *
He was also an extremely cultivated man, and
whether he is taken as an exception or a type
of his times, he certainly has no counterpart
to-day. In the middle of the nineteenth century they
still ruled their children with the method of
stern, if not tyrannical, discipline. Time has
still to show whether the reverse plan of giving
the first place to children is going to prove more
* The Spectator, March 7, 1891.

THE OLD NOBILITY 91
successful. Illnesses and ailments were not con
sidered fit subjects for conversation. In their
ignorance of the elementary rules of health and
hygiene they often sacrificed their children, and
were almost cruel in their intolerance of physical
weakness. But this was not peculiar to them.
It was the habit of the age they lived in. They
were almost as good sportsmen as their fathers,
for sport was still a pursuit which demanded
" thorough acquaintance with the habits of wild
animals, sympathetic knowledge of dogs, and
minute familiarity with features of a country
side." * It has not yet become a mechanical
pastime for town -bred idLejJS.
With crinolines, trousers, ringlets, and
whiskers had come in a propriety and punc
tiliousness which was a natural reaction from
the rowdyism and dissoluteness of the preceding
generations back into the eighteenth century ;
this produced a slightly pompous fastidiousness,
but a decided rise in the moral tone.
Already during the previous century the rich
wholesale merchant and the nabob had gained
admittance into upper-class society and won their
way into gentility. But the protest against the
vulgarity of trade was kept up by the stricter
aristocrats, who never attempted to compete in
the professional world and did not dream of
engaging in trade ; they would have thought it
derogatory to their caste. They just slipped
naturally and easily into posts of importance
* " George III. and Charles Fox," Sir George Trevelyan.

92 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
in the Services and in politics, wJiich were still
reserved for them, and for which no special
training seemed to them necessary, and as
soldiers, sailors, politicians, and administrators
they were able to leave their mark on history.
" It is our wish," said Thackeray, " that there
should be a race set apart in this happy country
who should hold the first rank, have the first
prizes and chances in all government jobs and
and patronages. We cannot make all your dear
children peers, but the young ones shall have
everything a government can give, they shall get
the pick of all the places."
The worst condemnation in their society was
for anything to be " vulgar," and they had a
supreme contempt for the parvenu. Their
morals were by no means above reproach ;
irregular relationships were tacitly accepted,
but there was no flaunting of vices or craving
for vicious excitements. The Victorian Court
set a sober but rather rigid tone of propriety,
which may have been stiff and dull, but which
had no traces in it of the 'flashy dissoluteness
which began to permeate society later. The old
type, with its courtly distinction, was favoured
and appreciated. Domesticity was preferred to
worldliness, but any undue interest in Art and
Letters was regarded with suspicion. As a class
these gentlemen were very badly educated, and
though strides were being made in the world of
Science and Letters, it was a rare exception for
any of them to display any first-rate intellectual

THE OLD NOBILITY 93
ability. They had the fault of all aristocracies
which are cut off from the great life of the
people : a wondrous ignorance of the struggles
and emotions of those who live and do not
vegetate. Their distinction had merit because
it sprang from a natural diffidence and stern
uprightness in general conduct, which produce
self-confidence, and not from arrogance, which
breeds conceit. They played their part with an
unobtrusive dignity, and by their endeavour to
avoid wounding the susceptibilities of their
fellow-men they gained their admiration, and
in some cases their affection.
In matters of education they took very little
trouble to supervise the training their children
were to undergo, and they had no suspicion as
yet that their sons and grandsons might not be
as comfortably and easily provided for as they
had been themselves. The children learned in
their earliest days to reverence and respect their
own class when they studied " Little Arthur's
History of England " :—
"The nobles of England are useful to the
country. As they are rich enouigh to live without
working for themselves and their families, they
have time to be always ready when the King
wants advice, or when there is a Parliament
to make laws ; or when the King wishes to send
messages to other Kings. ... As their fore
fathers were made nobles because of their
goodness, wisdom, or bravery, they have in
general followed their example ; and they have

94 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
always, next after the King, been the people we
have loved best, and who have done us most
good. ... So you see that noblemen have been
of great use in England. When you are older
you will understand this better, and you will
find out many reasons to be glad that we have
noblemen in our dear country."
Little Arthur is now grown up, and he is not
quite sure that every one believes what he was
taught. As the century advanced the aristocracy were
very gradually relaxing their hold as a political
force. In 1867, and again in 1884, there were
further extensions of the franchise. The middle
class had occupied a position of predominance
after 1832, and now the working class were
beginning to make their voice heard. The
aristocracy was not relegated to a subordinate
position, but the golden age had obviously passed.
Except in the persons of their leaders and states
men who held office, their interest and participa
tion in public affairs began to diminish. This
shifting of the seat of authority became notice
able, and a writer * in the sixties comments on
it with some alarm : —
" Of late the middle orders have been the sole
creators, and they have been embarrassed by no
factious opposition by the class which has parted
from their former power ; but that the country
has gained in dignity and elevation by these
habits of sensitive retirement, by this exagger-
* Heron, " The Aristocracy and the People," 1862.

THE OLD NOBILITY 95
ated modesty on the part of the aristocracy
in these days cannot be maintained. . . . The
leaders of the people, the aristocracy, who were
the political instructors of their time, had
planned, laboured, exposed their persons and
their fortunes to exalt the nationality, have of
late altogether deserted their duty . . . the aris
tocracy have shrunk more and more into the
pleasures of ease and retirement. The upper
classes untrained in the vigorous exercises of
politics as formerly, and immersed in the amiable
pursuits of life, can hardly expect to be either
the interpreters of high national policy or to
offer any barrier to the tide of democracy when
it approaches."
The tide was indeed rising. It was a hopeless
task to attempt to stem it. A few boldly sided
with the cause of reform, but the main body
either held aloof or obstinately opposed the
changes that were to deprive them of their power
as a class. The middle-class politician had come
to the front, his value was undoubted, and though
he sympathised for the most part with the
ideals of the Liberal party, which was already
beginning to shed its aristocratic Whig section,
he was also welcome in the Conservative ranks.
He came to voice the views of his own class, but
he came well equipped, specially trained, with
natural talent, and with a habit of life that was
uncontaminated by the excesses and frivolities
of high society. He was by his upbringing a
worker, and he regarded his parliamentary duties
as serious business. He had come to stay.

96 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
The great abuses of patronage and recognised
jobbing which were rife in the eighteenth century
had much diminished. Purchase of commissions
was abolished in the Army. The growth of local
government and the establishment of parish,
borough, and county councils brought to the
fore a type of man who showed by his
capacity and his mental calibre that he was
likely to be a highly efficient servant, both in
the executive and administrative branches of
the public service.
The fact which in all ages had been patent and
obvious in the world of science and the creative
arts— namely, that the highest mental powers are
to be found, as a rule, in those classes of society
that have been accustomed to arduous work and
severe training— was at last penetrating into the
no less important art and science of govern
ment and administration. Hitherto tradition,
custom, and, indeed, the law, prevented any
chance being given to those who were not born
in the purple, or who were not under the patron
age of the great leading families. The change
began to permeate the whole social life of the
nation. The doctor, the parson, the lawyer, for
instance, had been accustomed not long before
to take their places silently and submissively
below the salt. Now there was gradually ceasing
to be any savour of inferiority in their social
position, and with the painter, the musician, and
the actor they were ranked on a footing of
equality with every one else. Professional status

THE OLD NOBILITY 97
no longer disqualified for the social position of
a gentleman, although the aristocracy would dis
pute any one's claim to be a gentleman unless
he had the approved manner and comme il faut
tone. It was not till the last decade or so of the
century that the possession of money, pure and
unadulterated by merit, became in itself a suffi
cient qualification for admission to the peerage
and through it to the aristocracy. Indeed, the
reply of the aristocrat who survives from those
times against the attack on his caste is not
without reason. " You complain of the aris
tocracy," he says ; " you condemn our houses
and our establishments, and laugh at our lineage
and traditions. But what are you setting up
as a substitute? Men with ten times as much
money, who can buy us out ; men who keep up
far more costly and ostentatious households, and
whom we think vulgar and grasping and without
distinction. You may have suffered under us
in the past, but we rendered some service. You
will suffer a great deal more under a plutocracy
who, while rendering you no service at all, will
not hesitate to exploit you. Moreover, as the
mere possession of riches is an ignoble and selfish
ideal which can be held out to every citizen in
the State, you will find it more difficult to free
yourself from the plutocratic yoke. You make
use of our titles to set up this new style of social
governance. And you call this democracy."
The nineteenth-century aristocrat may make
7

98 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
this protest, but his twentieth-century descendant
will not join with him. The latter is bent on
a friendly, intimate, and repaying alliance with
the commercial -plutocracy.
In his protest the nineteenth -century aristocrat
is fully justified from his point of view. We
want to prevent the fish falling into the pluto
cratic fire, but we do not intend to leave it in
the aristocratic frying-pan. The whole question
of titles must be reserved for a later chapter.
We are now approaching the period when a
further inroad was to be made on the political
power and privileges of the aristocracy. From
the eighties onwards the country was closely
occupied with Irish politics, and the public mind
was being continually distracted by military
expeditions and wars. The Conservatives, who
were now becoming closely associated with and
representative of the aristocracy, were able,
with only a short break, to retain the power
in their hands for twenty years. And it was
not till the Victorian era was passed and a new
century had dawned that the full effect of the
influences and under-currents that had been at
work all the time became apparent.

CHAPTER V
LORDS AND COMMONS
Decline of political power of the aristocracy — The Parlia
ment Act of 1911 — Events which led up to it — Reform
Bill of 1832 the beginning of the change — Compo
sition of House of Commons — Rise of Trade Unions
— House of Lords unaffected by changes — The Liberal
peer — Treatment of Liberal legislation by the Lords —
The election of 1906 — Conflict between the two Houses
— The aristocracy and the Conservative party — The
social side of political life.
The decline of the political power of the aris
tocracy is the keynote of the transformation they
are undergoing. The change from being able to
hold the reins of government by special privi
lege and unquestioned tradition to a state of
affairs in which privilege and tradition count for
very little must alter materially the position,
the prospects, and the general outlook of the
aristocrat. It is for this reason that it will be necessary
to allude briefly to recent controversial politics.
Indeed, it would be impossible to omit all
mention of the memorable struggle which cul
minated in the passage of the Parliament Act
09

100 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
of 1911, because it marks the latest stage in the
prolonged conflict between aristocratic ascen
dancy and popular self-government. This aspect
of the question was not sufficiently dwelt on in
the turmoil of speeches and writings which raged
around the controversy while it lasted.
The serious deadlock which arose between the
two Houses of Parliament was not a mere in
convenience in the conduct of legislation, nor
was it mainly a technical constitutional problem.
The issue was not between the six hundred and
seventy members of the House of Commons and
the six hundred and twenty members of the
House of Lords, nor between the Government and
the Opposition. The full purport of the contest
was broader and far more vital, and the settle
ment, though by no means final, was the out
ward and public manifestation of a social as
well as a political change.
The growing conflict between an unreformed
House of Lords and a reformed House of Com
mons was bound to become more and more
acute. As long as the two Houses represented
the same interests and the same class things
could work smoothly enough, and the territorial
aristocracy dominated without effort a silent and
submissive people.
The Reform Bill of 1832, which was the real
beginning of the change, freed the House of
Commons from its entire dependency on the
House of Lords. At the end of the eighteenth
century more than three hundred members of

LORDS AND COMMONS 101
the House of Commons were virtually returned
by the influence of a hundred and sixty persons,
landowners and borough-mongers, most of whom
were members of the House of Lords. The
House of Commons at this time, as Sir George
Trevelyan says, " swarmed with eldest sons, with
cousins and nephews of great noblemen, who
were patrons of family boroughs, and with
wealthy squires who scorned a peerage but made
it a point of honour to stand for their own county
at the first general election after they came of
age." *
A table drawn up in 1816 f states that out of a
House of six hundred and fifty-eight members,
three hundred were nominated by peers, and one
hundred and seventy -one by commoners. In
1827, when Canning was trying to form a
Government, Croker (who was Secretary to the
Admiralty) gave him details as to the influence
of the borough-mongers, and estimated the
number of members nominated by them at close
on three hundred. J By the provisions of the
* " George III. and Charles Fox," Sir George Trevelyan.
t Oldfield's " Representative History."
I " Number of Members returned to the House of
Commons by the influence of some of the peers : Tories —
Lord Lonsdale, 9 ; Lord Hertford, 8 ; Duke of Rutland, 6
Duke of Newcastle, 5 ; Lord Tarborough, 5 ; Lord Powis, 4
Lord Falmouth, 4 ; Lord Anglesey, 4 ; Lord Ailesbury, 4
Lord Radnor, 3 ; Duke of Northumberland, 4 ; Duke of
Buccleuch, 4 ; Marquess of StafEord, 3 ; Duke of Bucking
hamshire, 3 ; Lord Mount Edgcumbe, 4 ; besides at least
twelve or fourteen who have each two seats. Whigs — Lord

102 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
Reform Bill not only was the franchise extended,
but fifty-six rotten boroughs were swept away.
There was something more in this than electoral
reform. It was the first step towards aliena
tion between the two Houses. There was a
bitter fight at the time ; the Lords were naturally
reluctant to lose their control over the Commons.
It was far more convenient to have a subor
dinate House of Nominees than an independent
House of possible Antagonists.
Outside Parliament the Reform Bill had in
augurated the political enfranchisement and
emancipation of the people, and this, once
begun, was destined to proceed further. The in
troduction of free education served more than
anything, and is still serving, to create a self-
conscious democracy fully alive to its great
responsibilities, for knowledge means self-con
fidence and strength.
Another important factor which contributed
towards the gradual liberation of the working
class was the institution and rapid growth of
Trade Unions. Before 1824 such combinations
of working-men were regarded as illegal, and
numerous Acts of Parliament were designed to
Fitzwilliam, 8 ; Lord Darlington, 7 ; Duke of Devon, 7 ;
Duke of Norfolk, 6 ; Lord Grosvenor, 6 ; Duke of Bedford,
4 ; Lord Carrington, 4 ; and about half a dozen who have
a couple of seats each." Adding to these the seats there
were in the hands of Commoners, he makes a total of " two
hundred and three in the hands of what may be called the
Tory aristocracy. The Whig seats about seventy-three "
(" Anecdotal History of British Parliament," Jennings).

LORDS AND COMMONS 103
prohibit and prevent the organisation of labour
The industrial disturbances contemporaneous
with the French Revolution led to the passing of
the Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800, which
made all trade combinations illegal. By this
means the Trade Unions, which were beginning
to be formed among textile workers in Yorkshire
and Lancashire, were kept down. The indus
trial revolution and the advent of machinery and
specialised methods of production placed the
workers in an entirely new and strange position.
Although some of them had the vote, the vote
alone without organisation, and more especially
without the power of association, was of little
use. From the Act passed in 1824 down to the
Trade Disputes Act of 1906, a series of
measures were passed legalising and extending
the powers of Trade Unions. The new organ
isation of industry brought to the front a body
of representative working-men who, as their
responsibilities increased, fitted themselves for
the task of expressing more accurately and more
forcibly than was hitherto possible the needs and
desires of the millions of workers who till then
had been almost dumb.
The House of Commons, which had become free
and independent, reflected to some extent in its
membership the changes in social and industrial
development, with the result that there was a
decline in aristocratic membership and a corre
sponding increase in middle-class and working-
class representation. For instance, in 1860 there

104 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
were a hundred and eight members who were
either sons of peers or heirs to peerages. In
1905 their number was fifty -two. After the
election of 1906 they were further reduced to
thirty-three. Since that time the number has
increased again slightly. Also there are now
considerably fewer members than formerly who
have been brought up at one of the large Public
Schools. They-still, however, amount to nearly
one-third of the whole House. Meanwhile the
middle-class members constituted a formidable
acquisition to the House. Their training and
equipment were of a far more serious kind than
that to which the House had hitherto been accus
tomed. Soon they captured the majority of posts
in the Government itself, and even in the Conser
vative party, with its aristocratic traditions, their
services were found to be indispensable. Lastly
the working class gradually got a foothold in
the House. At first a few trade unionists came
in as Liberals, but the Labour movement gained
ground rapidly, and ultimately in 1906 an inde
pendent party of Labour representatives found
a place in the new House of Commons, and came
into existence as an organised political force.
But while these extremely significant changes
were taking place in the Commons, the House
of Lords, unlike any other institution in the
whole country, remained unchanged and quite
unaffected by outside circumstances. Its stagna
tion and immobility naturally made it increas
ingly hostile to democratic advance. The number

LORDS AND COMMONS 105
of Liberal peers, or peers who could remain
Liberal under social pressure, gradually dimin
ished. Since the Reform Bill two hundred and
fifty-three peers have been created by Liberal
Prime Ministers alone, and yet in 1911 a bare
seventy could be found who, as Liberals, would
support a Liberal Government.
The phenomenon of a Liberal after receiving a
peerage becoming a Conservative, or anyhow of
his son becoming a Conservative, is not uncommon.
It is chafflngly suggested that in the rarefied atmo
sphere of the House of Lords they come to see the
error of their ways. Some hold that advanced age
begets an inclination towards Conservative ideas.
But what is the real truth? The social pressure
is too strong ior them. They begin to realise very
soon that Radical ideas are discordant in their
new surroundings. If they are already, or if
they become, county magnates and want to
associate with other country gentlemen, or with
the elite of society, they must conceal or abandon
the advanced notions they at one time supported.
If they advocate reductions in the Navy, attack
the policy of Imperialism, favour land reform,
or support the claims of workers against
employers, they simply cannot expect to be called
upon in the same friendly way by their neigh
bours. They will be given the cold shoulder,
and in hundreds of small ways they will be made
to feel uncomfortable. To this kind of pressure
many succumb. Their sons, who may not be
specially interested in politics and who want to

106 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
be in the swim, associate exclusively with the
well-to-do upper class and swell the band of
non-political Conservatives who form such a
formidable battalion of supporters in the political
Conservative party on critical occasions. It is
a very good instance of how the power of our
aristocracy works not so much through political
conversion or a change of conviction, but by a
slow constraining force which operates from all
sides in a subtle way on the more intimate and
private part of life and insinuates itself into
domestic details, which to most men must be of
paramount interest.
Whatever be the causes, the fact remains that
the House of Lords, which continued primarily
to be a great agrarian institution, increased its
Tory majority and the number of Liberals
dwindled. Consequently the friction between
the two Chambers, caused by an ever-widening
diversity of aim and interest, became more fre
quent. Peel admitted at the opening of Parlia
ment in 1846 that it was " no easy task to ensure
the harmonious and united action of an ancient
monarchy, a proud aristocracy, and a reformed
House of Commons."
After 1832 the causes of conflict were many
and various. The Lords showed uncompromis
ing hostility to the cause of reform in all
directions. For twenty-five years (1833-58)
they repeatedly rejected the Bill for removing
the disabilities of Jews and admitting them into
Parliament, even as they had twice refused to

LORDS AND COMMONS 107
grant Catholic Emancipation before the Reform
Bill. They were able lo delay for thirty-six years
(1835-71) the abolition of Tests, and so prevent
the admission of Nonconformists to the Uni
versities ; and for seven years (1873-80) the
opening of graveyards to Nonconformists was
prevented. The abolition of Church rates was
delayed for eleven years (1858-69). Only by
the inclusion of the Paper Duty Bill of 1860 in
the Finance Bill was it saved from destruction,
and for two years the Ballot Bill of 1871 was
opposed because it was a blow aimed at the
aristocratic privileges of controlling votes. On
the rejection by the Lords of the Franchise Bill
in 1883, Mr. Bright declared that " their arro
gance and class selfishness had long been at war
with the highest interests of the nation," and he
advocated as a specific remedy the curtailment of
their veto, virtually the same plan as was finally
adopted nearly thirty years later. It was on the
occasion of their making a damaging amend
ment to the Parish Councils Bill of 1888 that Mr.
Gladstone uttered his famous note of warning,
in which he said : " Differences of conviction,
differences of prepossession, differences of
mental habits, and differences of fundamental
tendency between the House of Lords and the
House of Commons appear to have reached a
development in the present year such as to create
a state of things of which we are compelled to
say that, in our judgment, it cannot continue."
When the second Home Rule Bill was rejected,

108 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
Mr. Bright's plan was referred to again. But
the Liberals were only in office for a very short
period, and there was no time or opportunity to
deal with such a critical question. The past,
however, was not forgotten, and when the
Liberals were returned again after ten years of
Conservative rule, every Liberal was well aware
that before long the same trouble would inevit
ably arise and that a settlement of the question
could not be long delayed.
The electoral debacle of 1906 naturally caused
great alarm in the Conservative world. Till then
many who were accustomed to hold the reins of
government in their hands, as if by right, had
not fully realised that the control was slipping
from them. The {difference in the House of
Commons of 1906, compared with its predecessor,
may have been even more marked than the
change in the House before and after the Reform
Bill. The repression which the progressive cause
had undergone in the twenty preceding years
had generated a degree of energy which caused
great alarm in the ranks of Conservative poli
ticians when the outburst came. There were
years of inaction to be made up for ; there were
false and reactionary steps to be corrected. How
ever, even the Conservatives had been infected
by the reforming spirit of the age. They had
not remained quite stationary, but they had
moved as little as possible for fear of disturbing
existing interests.
New social reforms were now undertaken with

LORDS AND COMMONS 109
vigour and determination. Education, Land,
Licensing, and the beginnings of further electoral
reform each had its turn. The Church, the
Landed interest, and the Liquor interest, all aris
tocratic concerns — though the last has a strong
flavour of the plutocracy about it— found that
their privileges and pockets were being attacked.
The last barrier which had kept them sheltered
from the masses was to be broken down. The
power of Trade Unions was to be extended, the
hours of labour to be reduced, small holdings
created, land valued, plural voting abolished, and
a fairer share of the burden of taxation placed
on the shoulders of those best able to bear it.
Surely this was resolution ! In their despair
they turned to the guardians of property in the
Second Chamber to act as their champions. The
Lords set to work at once and used their veto
with unsparing hands. Each session they
rejected some of the principal Bills that were
introduced. A deadlock was created by their
death-struggle with the Commons, and for a time
they thought they had triumphed.
The Liberal Prime Minister declared, when
they first adopted these tactics, " The resources
of the House of Commons are not exhausted, and
I say, it with conviction that a way must be found,
and a way will be found, by which the will of
the people, expressed through their elected repre
sentatives in this House, will be made to
prevail." *
* Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, House of Commons,
December 20, 1906.

110 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
For five years after this warning, which was
scoffed at, the Lords continued to exercise their
veto with increasing frequency. They defended
their action on each occasion, and claimed that
they were exercising a salutary check on hasty
and ill-considered proposals for legislation. At
last they went so far as to reject a Budget,
declaring that it went beyond the limits of a
legitimate Finance Bill. Their action now made
it impossible for a Liberal Government, if they
retained the confidence of the country, to remain
in office. Each provocative move on the part of
the Lords was met by a counter move on the
part of the Government, till at last the decisive
phase of the dispute was reached. It will not
be necessary to follow the various stages which
led up to the introduction of the Bill, nor to
relate the circumstances which made two General
Elections necessary before the matter could be
settled. Very little attempt was made by the
Conservative party to defend the Second
Chamber. The hereditary principle was thrown
over and the need for reform was acknowledged.
They pleaded against single-chamber government
and against the withdrawal of all checks on
revolutionary legislation.
A Bill was eventually introduced formulating
a scheme to abolish the absolute veto of the Lords
while reserving to them their powers of revision
and delay. The country regarded the eventual
passage of the Bill as certain. Such an expedient,
in the opinion of the majority, was long overdue.

LORDS AND COMMONS 111
It was the measures that were to be passed in
future under a Parliament Act, rather than the
Parliament Bill itself, that roused the indignation
of the Conservatives in Parliament. The excite
ment over the final passage of the Bill was almost
entirely parliamentary, and was chiefly caused
by the Prime Minister's threat to make use of
the Sovereign's prerogative to create peers in
order to overcome the resistance of the large
Opposition majority in the House of Lords.
There was a small minority of peers who
throughout fought boldly on the side of demo
cracy. They may have been referred to in terms
similar to those used by a character in TroUope :
" There is nobody on earth I pity so much as
a Radical peer who is obliged to work like a
nigger with a spade to shovel away the ground
from under his own feet." As a matter of fact,
they were helping to sweep away some of the
unauthorised privileges and obsolete powers
which were rapidly turning their class into a
target for the scorn, ridicule, and animosity of
their fellow-countrymen, who had ceased to
regard them as rightful rulers and natural
superiors. The final year of the struggle showed the
desperate attempts of the ancient order to strain
every nerve against the inevitable, and to thwart
and destroy the projects and ambitions of those
who represented the new thought and the new
life of the nation. Though apparently successful
at first, the rash action of the Chamber which

112 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
still represented the privileges and prejudices of
the wealthier class and of vested interests only
helped in the long run to hasten the day when
they were to be deprived of their most formid
able weapon.
Though they retain considerable powers, as
they now have a statutory right of delaying
measures, and socially they still hold undisputed
sway, the aristocracy, by means of their own
hereditary Chamber, can no longer prevent, by
the exercise of the final veto, the wishes of the
people from being expressed in the form of an
Act of Parliament. Whatever trials democracy
may have to undergo, it can no longer be sub
jected to constant defeat at the hands of a con
stitutionally organised force of hostile aristocratic
opinion. But the Parliament Bill can only be regarded
as a temporary expedient and as a step towards
further constitutional reform, which, whatever
shape it may ultimately take, must inevitably
sweep away the special legislative rights and
privileges of the hereditary peerage.
In fighting their parliamentary battle, the aris
tocracy very naturally looked to the Conservative
party to espouse their cause. Apart from
political action, the social attitude of Conserva
tives towards the nobility and their relations is
quite natural and rational. They regard them as
their friends and allies ; their political ranks are
filled by 'them ; they are quite aware of their
shortcomings, and are not particularly proud of

LORDS AND COMMONS 113
them or impressed by them. Conservatives
look upon them as a useful political asset, for
they have a firm belief in the theory of the
maintenance of aristocratic rule, and, moreover,
approve the habits of a leisured class. But it
would be very unfair to cast upon those who
are Conservatives in politics the entire blame
for the social subservience to and glorification
of our aristocracy which exists in the middle
class. In this respect their political opponents
are just as much to blame as they are. Liberals
profess to disbelieve in aristocracy, and yet they
studiously occupy themselves in copying it. They
pretend to have a healthy contempt for titles,
while they shower them broadcast on their
delighted followers. In their social functions
they endeavour, quite unsuccessfully, to copy so
far as possible the smartness and brilliance of
a society which is bitterly opposed to them and
despises them, and they at the same time con
demn extravagance and ostentation. They have
not yet shaken off the Whig tradition of being
an aristocratic party themselves, though in fact
they have ceased to be anything of the kind.
There is something almost pathetic to-day in the
stampede at a Liberal social gathering to catch
a glimpse of the diamond tiara of the very rare
Liberal countess.
While we may attack the Conservative party
for their political action, the Liberal party are
just as responsible as their opponents for the
snobbish adulation and flattery, of rank and
8

114 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
position which abounds. It is not the declaration
of bitter hostility against any set or society that
is wanted, nor the violent abuse of any titled
individual. It is the convinced and uncom
promising hatred of all the make-believe, shams,
foolish vanities, silly trappings, abject devices
that are smothering a body of estimable people
who, freed from these encumbrances, might be
well fitted for the performance of high duties
and efficient service.
The social side of political life is a good index
of the nature and the method of government.
The Whig and Tory controversies of the past
divided society very sharply at times, so that
the adherents of one party were not invited to
the houses of the other party, and might even
not be on speaking terms with their opponents.
Nevertheless, had democracy appeared on the
scene as a force to be reckoned with in those
days, they would have closed their ranks and
sunk their differences in an alliance to resist an
alien force inimical to their interests. Still
indeed in these days, notwithstanding the exist
ence of acute party dissensions, " Society "
manages to unite some of the leading politicians
on both sides, because class habit is stronger than
political conviction. Mr. George Russell draws
attention to this in one of his essays : " Poli
ticians who are old enough to remember the days
when political strife was earnest and even brutal
are inclined to lament the softer conditions of
modern controversy. They say—and certainly

LORDS AND COMMONS 115
there is some truth in it— that men who hospit
ably mix with one another in social life are
disarmed when they come to attack one another
in public, and that therefore the fight which
ought to be fought out with all possible deter
mination loses in vigour, earnestness, and in
terest." We should feel inclined to put it
stronger than this, and say that a warm social
friendship between political adversaries makes
it impossible for the one to attack the other
publicly with any depth of feeling, and therefore
with any effect. Lawyers who are paid advocates
can chat and chaff over their luncheon in the
interval of a trial in which they have been
heatedly abusing one another as opposing
counsel. But undoubtedly it would come as a
great shock to many of the rank and file sup
porters on either side of politics who are deeply
in earnest if they, knew that intimate social
relations existed between prominent political
antagonists. They would conclude, not without
reason, that the social sympathy was genuine
and the political antagonism sham.
Unless a politician is actually discussing
current political topics, it is now considered
correct that he should disguise what are called
his party feelings. That is to say, in Parliament,
on the platform, or when writing articles in the
Press, he may put on his political convictions
as he would a coat, which in the intervals can
easily, be taken off and hung up on a peg. But
surely political convictions that are worth having

116 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
at all may not only colour, but may dye with an
indelible stain, a man's entire outlook on all ques
tions, be they domestic or personal, social or
national, or even international. He need not be
ashamed of the fact, for it does not deprive him of
a sense of fair play, of a desire to be just, or
of paying due regard to the views and arguments
of those who differ from him. If politics is a
game and political conviction a theoretical veneer
or costume to don while playing the game, then it
is easy enough to hobnob with your opponent
and attack him «with all the appearance of
righteous indignation in the House of Commons.
It is not, however, chance friendships between
opponents that are to be deplored, for they may
be based on natural circumstances, but it is the
identity of aim and outlook and the under-current
of sympathy which may exist between leading
men on both sides, based either on aristocratic
tradition or perhaps on a preference for an
oligarchic rather than a democratic system of
government. The complaint that whichever side
is in power there is a tendency to unite by
family and social ties the leading members of
the " ins " and the " outs," so that they, constitute
a sort of governing clique, is by no means devoid
of foundation.
A foreign observer, who has made a close study
of British manners and customs, comments rather
severely on this aspect of our party system : —
" Another striking characteristic of the English
political world," he says, " is the perfect ease

LORDS AND COMMONS 117
and noinchalant audacity with which one half of
the upper class separates itself from the other,
enters the camp of the Radicals, converts their
principles to its own use, and commences a half
hearted attack upon its own privileges, without
renouncing any of the customs, feelings, and rela
tions by which the unity of the caste is preserved.
It is like a tacit understanding by which, while
some of the garrison continue to hold out, others
feign disloyalty, mingle with the assailants,
ardently espouse their cause, and yet, in order
to prevent the ruin and sack of the town, a
catastrophe for all concerned, endeavour gradu
ally to turn the siege into a blockade, delaying
the attacks, sparing the citadel as long as pos
sible, and delaying and finally humanising the
inevitable victory." *
This may be exaggerated, but it is true that
Conservatives in politics are not sorry to have
aristocrats and rich gentlemen as opponents,
because it prevents the cleavage being sharp and
defined between the " haves " and the " have
nots." The conflict now is one of principle,
and not of caste and class. But the advent of
Labour has brought the latter sort of class
conflict more within the range of probability.
Also it must be noted that Cabinet government
in an overburdened legislative assembly tends to
over -concentration of power in the hands of the
executive. The permanent Civil Service, partly
recruited from this upper class, in close contact
* Emile Boutmy, " The English People."

118 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
with it, and blindly on the side of law, authority,
and tradition, extends its influence and tightens
the supremacy of the executive with bureaucratic
bands. Having wrested prerogatives first from the
Sovereign and then from the aristocracy, the
people must be on their guard not to allow the
function of government to be usurped by a more
or less self -constituted oligarchy depending theo
retically on what is termed the people's will for
their position, but finding it more and more easy
to avoid consulting even the people's representa
tives with regard to its actions. Supreme Cabinet
control may be a step further than monarchical
or aristocratic government, but it must not be
mistaken for complete democracy.

CHAPTER VI
HEREDITARY TITLES
Titles part of the national tradition — Titles in the past — The
creation of peers — The nobility in France — Titles as a
sign of public recognition — Increase of orders and
decorations — The pride in hereditary titles — Coats of
arms and crests — Succession to a peerage — Suggested
Act for termination of hereditary titles.
However much the gradual absorption, or rather
dissipation, of a social aristocracy may be
desirable and even desired, there is always one
practical difficulty in the way which must, as
things stand, prevent its accomplishment. It is
the existence of hereditary titles. Titles are
accepted as part of the national tradition as
much as the monarchy, the bicameral system,
the Established Church, or the Standing Army.
Their abolition would seem to be as impossible
as the abolition of any of the others. Their
existence does not rest on reasoned argument,
but on historic tradition which, in a country
which has a long consecutive history, amounts
to an engrained superstition. There is a fascina
tion in tracing the links of a long chain back into
the past ; the fact that a man is the twelfth duke

120 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
or the fifteenth earl of his line appeals to the
historic sense and rouses an appreciation of the
picturesque. From an archaeological point of
view it is interesting, though not very important.
But these rather thin and intangible considera
tions are of very little account as compared with
the serious drawbacks which attend the custom
of inheriting titles.
When the aristocracy were actually the rulers,
leaders, captains, and governors, titles were
natural and necessary. But in the days when
titles were accurate designations the nobility was
a very small class. To be ennobled was a high
and special honour. " To whom more is com
mitted," says a fifteenth -century patent of
nobility, " a more perfect order of conversa
tion and polity is expected." Dukes were very
rare in early days. At the Restoration only three
existed. But Charles II. gave several new patents
for the title in his desire to ennoble his illegiti
mate sons. Except for about twenty years in
and after the reign of Charles I., when there
were five marquises, no more than three noble
men ever bore this title contemporaneously till
the reign of George III. Nine was the largest
number of viscounts before this reign. Earls
and barons, the most ancient and also the most
numerous orders of the peerage, have also in
creased greatly in recent years. The peerage
as a whole was enlarged under the Stuarts from
59 to 150. Between 1700 and 1750 thtere
were 42 further additions. George III. created

HEREDITARY TITLES 121
388 peers, and 28 of these were conferred as
a form of bribe to secure the passage of the
Act of Union. Since the Reform Bill 435
additions have been made to the peerage. The
number of the whole peerage at the end of 1911
amounted to 709, of whom 602 were members
of the House of Lords. The institution of the
peerage may have saved us from the curse of
a definitely constituted nobility as on the Con
tinent — that is to say, a large class bearing
arms, enjoying certain privileges, and all titled.
Many families which would be reckoned as noble
anywhere else are not reckoned as noble in Great
Britain. All the same, the faintest and most
distant connection with a peerage is made the
most of to prove aristocratic relationship, and
the titled nobility, even in the limited British
sense, forms the pivot and mainstay of the
aristocracy. The ancient titles might have waned and fallen
into disuse had it not been for the hereditary
legislative chamber. The House of Lords re
quired perpetual replenishing, the Sovereign
ceased to be the actual and became only the
nominal fountain of honour, and political leaders,
in their attempt to secure a strong body of
supporters in the Second Chamber, took into their
hands the power of conferring the honour of
a peerage on a certain number of their followers.
Comparatively few, therefore, of the present
nobility can claim the distinction of a long
lineage. There is nothing sacrosanct about a

122 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
Georgian title, nor is there anything at all
picturesque about a newly created peer, but the
existence of a hereditary chamber furnishes the
excuse for the continuance of hereditary titles.
Now we have reached a period when there is
almost a complete consensus of opinion that an
exclusive hereditary chamber is an anomaly that
can no longer be tolerated, and a large body,
of opinion is declaring for the elimination of
the hereditary element altogether. The one
formidable obstacle to the gradual abolition of
hereditary titles is therefore likely to be removed.
In a reformed Second Chamber, if a titular
designation is adopted, the descendant of a lord
of Parliament would not in any case succeed
to his title. Some may say, Why trouble about
titles at all, once you have got rid of a hereditary
legislature? If people like them, let them have
them. The remnant of the nobility in France
go on calling themselves dukes and counts ; they
exist in a backwater apart from the general
stream of public life, and they do not signify
one way or the other. But the French nobility,
though they had in their day many privileges,
such as immunity from taxation, never governed
the country. When they were shorn of their
privileges there w,as nothing left for them but
retirement. Our aristocracy have held a very
different position, and, in any case, even if it
were possible, it would be in no way desirable
to shunt any one class of the community per
manently into a siding. Or, to take another

HEREDITARY TITLES 123
simile, it is as if part of a crew were clinging
to a useless, cumbersome, old-fashioned hulk,
which still with a few sails up and a tattered
flag flying seems, in outward appearance, to have
a false air of security about her, though she is
no longer seaworthy, her rigging is antiquated
and cannot stand the weather. The crew can
do no good by sticking to the hulk, and there
are shoals and rocks ahead. We do not want
them all to be drowned, but we ask them to
come and serve with others on board the strongly
built ship that has superseded all others and
is making headway through the rough seas and
can weather the storm. But many ties prevent
them. Some of these are of their own making.
The cutting of this particular tie, it may be
shown, perhaps, would not be so difficult as
supposed, and is not so inconceivable as many
would have us believe.
Rank, although its value is utterly fictitious,
has an almost wider influence than wealth.
It overshadows intellectual distinction and gives
a man a start in advance of his fellows
in most forms of national competition. But
it must be granted that titles and honours
appear to appeal in a curious way to men
of all classes. Human vanity seems to demand
something of the sort. They are, indeed, useful
as a means of bestowing a sign of public
recognition on individuals, so long as these indi
viduals do not beg, pray, or pay for them. If
they are not hereditary, they can be regarded

124 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
as an honourable form of promotion. But even
in this case there should be some sort of reserve
if they are to be of any value, and the tendency
in recent years to shower broadcast knighthoods,
stars, ribbons, medals, and crosses must result
in making them cheap and worthless. The fact
of a man whose name or claim to merit is
quite unknown appearing in public bedizened!,
brooched, and buckled with numberless bits
of metal and coloured ribbon must make
him an object of ridicule and a figure of
fun. The practice has never reached the
absurd extreme to which it has been pushed
in foreign countries, where soldiers, courtiers,
diplomatists, and officials are literally plastered
over with decorations, but they have already
become common enough in this country to
have lost all distinction. Only within the last
thirty years six new orders, two new decora
tions, and several new medals (not war medals)
have been instituted. The large membership of
these four orders shows there is justification for
saying that the craving for this really rather
childish form of public recognition is on the
increase. The Victorian Order has some 870 members,
the Imperial Service Order 475, the Distinguished
Service Order 1,650, and the Order of Merit 17.
Some of the old orders are restricted in their mem
bership : the Garter, the Thistle, and St. Patrick
include altogether under 70 members ; but the
Bath has been extended to 2,000 members, St.

HEREDITARY TITLES 125
Michael and St. George to 1,000, and in addition
to these there are the Star of India (291) and
the Indian Empire 414 (not including natives
of India). This makes a grand total of nearly
6,800 decorated persons (not counting the re
cipients of war medals, the Victoria Cross, the
Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Volunteer and
Territorial decorations and orders for women,
or the vast band who receive ceremonial
medals). The outside public are quite ignorant of the
subtle distinctions in the various orders, and in
the grades and classes of those orders, and of
what vital consequence they are to those who
are affected. They know nothing of the depressed
feelings of a man who receives a K.C.M.G. when
he expected a K.C.B., nor the deep emotions
of an aspirant to a C.B. when he is presented
with an M.V.O. They may guess more easily the
disappointment of a would-be baronet when he
is made a knight. But far above them in the
Olympian heights their imagination cannot pene
trate, and they fail to appreciate the passionate
desire of a baron to become an earl.
To pin on medals won on the field of battle,
or the star of some ancient order of knighthood
accorded for signal service, may properly give
pride and satisfaction. But to have to wear stars
and crosses which you cannot avoid receiving, to
be presented with a medal because you happened
to attend some function, and to have a number
of letters of the alphabet placed after your name

126 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
on an envelope reduces the whole practice to a
complete farce. Nor is it only the silly pride
or sometimes genuine embarrassment at wearing
these things that is a reason for complaint ; the
heart-burning, the scheming, the tricks, the
plots, and the anxiety connected with the con
ferring and receiving of them are also highly,
objectionable features. The old orders were very
select and were never supposed to have very
much relation to merit. They were reserved as
special marks of royal favour for the high aris
tocracy. But now orders are used as a definite
method of acknowledging services. If merit in
any line could infallibly be discovered, its recog
nition by such means might be desirable. But
true merit when discovered often refuses recog
nition of this sort. In fact, the more the custom
increases the more do the really meritorious
despise such honours. It may safely be said
that if a reliable test were humanly possible it
would be found that a very large number of these
decorations and titles go to the wrong people.
But with such distinctions as these and with
life titles we need not be specially concerned,
though they all help to maintain the fabric of
class. It is the hereditary title that tends to
draw the nobility into a caste and rails them off
from the people. Titles, though worthy men
possess them and have had to accept them, set
up a vulgar and empty ideal for the " shallow-
minded to aspire to, multiply the artificial differ
ences between one man and another, and breed

HEREDITARY TITLES 127
an immense amount of ostentation and vulgarity
in the bearers and fawning obsequiousness in
those who look up to them. The pleasure of
saying " M'lord ' is almost as great as the
pleasure of being addressed as " M'lord." In
credible as it may seem, to have intercourse with
a live peer genuinely gives some men infinite ,
pleasure, and few have any idea of the intense |
delight that some other men feel in being lords
or becoming lords. They will cover their spoons,
their notepaper, their book-plates, their seals,
their carriages, their linen, and their footmen's
buttons with coronets, and even insert stone
coronets on the outside of their houses and metal
coronets in the ironwork of their gates. They
will have their portrait painted with a coronet
on a table by their side, and every opportunity
is taken to remind them continually of their rank.
But these coronets and crests and arms and
mottoes are all sham imitations of something that
was real only in mediaeval times. There are
many who pretend to trace family links into
the remote past by means of these symbols, and
claim armorial rights and armorial privileges for
certain families. But "Armory," as Mr. Oswald
Barron says,* " is not a living science. Armory
was stricken when the mediaeval period had its
death-wound, and as a living thing it cannot
be said to have survived our last civil war. The
ingenuities of the official guardians of heraldry
have reduced the arms of our English families
* The Ancestor, 1903.

128 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
to a welter of contradictions and misapprehen
sions. We wear no coats of arms on our backs,
we carry no shields on our arms, nor crests on
our heads. We say deliberately that there is
nothing in the modern practice of armory which
should appeal to any soul with wits above the
level of a postage-stamp collector's." Just as
hereditary stewards, hereditary cooks and
cellarers, hereditary falconers and keepers of
ducks in St. James's Park have ceased to exist,
so all hereditary titles should be allowed to pass
away, with the rest of the trappings of a once
powerful aristocracy. They only help to pro
long the fictitious belief in a superior governing
nobility. They never have been superior ; they
have ceased to be governing ; is there any reason
that they should continue to be noble? "Rank
and precedence forsooth ! " Thackeray exclaimed ;
" the table of ranks and degrees is a lie and;
should be flung into the fire. Organise rank and
precedence ! That was well for the masters of
the ceremonies of former ages. Come forward, ,
some great marshal, and organise equality in
society and your rod shall swallow up all the
juggling, old, court goldsticks."
Every man is at liberty to choose his trade or
profession. No man need accept any office
against his will. Even the heir apparent to the
throne may renounce his claim to the succession.
But for the eldest son of a peer, if he survives
his father, there is no way out. Whether he
likes it or not, he must become an heredlitary

HEREDITARY TITLES 129
legislator; he must succeed to the title. "The
world supposes him to be the fortunate heir of
what is called the accident of birth, and he is
in reality the hapless victim of the accident of
death. He has become a peer. From this lot
there is no escape." *
If he is a Member of the House of Commons
and his father is a peer of the United Kingdom,
he must leave the House of Commons, however
much he may be desirous of continuing his career
there. As a commoner he has ceased to exist.
" Because a man's father or grandfather or
ancestor at some bygone period (a period
measured in some cases by hundreds of years)
was ennobled as the reward of service to the
State, he is himself upon succession to the title,
about which in the majority of cases he was by
the necessity of things never consulted, pro
hibited from ever afterwards continuing or re
suming that service to the State in the legislative
assembly by which the State is governed — viz.,
the House of Commons." f Surely a free citizen
of the British Empire should if he so wishes
be allowed to refuse the burden of a coronet and
the disguise of a robe. In no other walk of life
does this inexorable compulsion exist.
If the nobility were allowed the option of
either renouncing their hereditary titles or their
claim to succeed to such a title, would any take
* Article by Mr. Curzon, Mr. Brodrick, and Lord
Woolmer, Nineteenth Century, February, 1894.
t Ibid. 9

130 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
advantage of such an option? It is not improb
able that some would. A title is conferred, let
us say, for some conspicuous, generally appre
ciated, national service, the name of the holder
of the title may become a household word, and
in succeeding generations his services are grate
fully remembered. But this remarkable man's
descendants may be very ordinary mortals,
perhaps rather below the average. Apart from
the idea of their succeeding to a great title being
somewhat grotesque, is it not a very embarrassing
burden to cast upon them? It is surely rather
humiliating for them to be perpetually compared
with their distinguished predecessor to their own
discomfiture, and to feel conscious that every one
is saying, " Just look at the present Duke of
A., or the present Lord B., compared with the
great Duke of A., or the splendid Lord B." Their
titles overweigh them and make them' top-heavy.
They are constantly singled out for recognition
in public ; an incognito is impossible with the
camera round the corner as they leave their front
door. This may be the penalty for fame and
great achievements, but it is hard that men and
women who have no remote claim to renown
and, like the vast majority of their fellows, are
incapable of great achievements should have to
suffer. Would not some of them be only too
grateful to remain in name what they are in
fact, just very ordinary mortals? In addition
to these there are surely a fair number of peers
who are bored to death with their title and would

HEREDITARY TITLES 131
very willingly give up the very doubtful privi
leges attached to it, and free themselves from the
band of sycophants that swarm round the nobility
like flies on a decaying carcass. The tradesman
might knock off his extra 25 per cent, which
is reserved for noble customers, and they would
find many other reliefs in ridding themselves of
unearned distinctions.
Family pride or pride of race might prevent
some from taking advantage of such an option.
There is satisfaction apparently in looking up
at a family portrait in an old house and saying,
" There is the first bearer of my name ten genera
tions ago ; I am directly descended from him ;
my family have always lived here and my son
will succeed me." There are not very many who
can say that, and some who can have no title
at all and find every bit as much satisfaction in
the archaeological interest of a line of long
descent as they would if they were dukes. But
without wounding these noble susceptibilities, we
may perhaps ask that future generations shall
become accustomed to the idea that the hereditary
title has joined the armorial bearings, the crest,
and the motto — is curious in an archaeological
sense, but has ceased to be a reality. And the
future inheritor of the old house, if he chances
to be interested in his family history, will look
up at the portrait of his early twentieth-century
ancestor and remark, perhaps, with a sigh,
" In those days we were dukes." This would
be the only change. Sentiment alone would

132 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
be wounded by the disappearance of hereditary
titles. ; '
To effect the purpose we require an Act of
Parliament, giving option to the living genera
tions and imposing compulsion on unborn
generations, in order to release the present
holders of titles from the disadvantages and dis
abilities which have been imposed upon them
without their consent, and to safeguard the future
generations against the handicap of unmerited
privilege. The Bill might so be drafted as to refer to
hereditary titles held by any of his Majesty's
subjects. The 1,085 baronets would not be
spared. After the passing of the Act it would
be lawful for any holder of an hereditary title
to disclaim the peerage, baronetcy, or what
ever it might be. And no heir or descendant
would be entitled to succeed to a title thus dis
claimed, which would absolutely cease. Further,
any heir or heiress to any peerage, baronetcy,
or hereditary title born after the passing of the
Act would not be entitled to succeed on the death
of the last holder born before the passing of
the Act, and again the title would, as lawyers
say, " cease and determine."
This would be simple enough. Yet by many
it would be regarded as an extreme if not ridicu
lously impossible idea. What seems ridiculous
to-day, however, may in a few years' time be
accepted as quite rational and normal. If
hereditary titles are allowed to remain, it is use-

HEREDITARY TITLES 133
less to expect any lowering of the class barriers
which now exist, and snobbishness will continue
to increase unashamed as long as the chief food
on which it thrives is preserved as an honoured
national institution.
Were such a measure as suggested passed into
law there would be no sudden change. The
transition would be gradual, offending the feelings
of no living person, and removing a perhaps
picturesque, but certainly troublesome, incubus
from posterity. Their little pedestals having been
removed, the aristocracy would be released from
the suffocating adulation of their multitudinous
satellites, and would enjoy far greater freedom
and far less constraint once they found them
selves on a level wdth their fellow-men, unen
cumbered by an empty nominal distinction.
Are the gentlemen of to-day prepared to take
such a step? It is to be feared that many of
them are not. Deprived of real power and find
ing their popularity on the wane, they will hold
fast to the last vestiges of their old glory lest
they should sink into entire obscurity. A party
of ascendancy will never relinquish its advan
tageous position without an obstinate struggle.
Some pretend to believe in all the old fictions.
A peer recently declared that people in distant
lands, who were free from the prejudices of our
political controversies, " appreciated at once the
difference between a gentleman and the gentle
man who was something niore — a nobleman with
a long lineage." If there are many who agree

134 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
with him, they will certainly not desire to relax
their hold on the label which informs the world
that they are " something more " than gentlemen.
Some still may be found who would be ready
to repeat the old hackneyed lines attributed to
Lord John Manners : —
" Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die,
But leave us still our old nobility."
Meanwhile we continue with conscientious
regularity to pray in church (though despair
may be growing in our hearts that our supplica
tion seems further than ever from fulffiment)
that " all the nobility " may be endued " with
grace, wisdom, and understanding."

CHAPTER VII
THE ARISTOCRAT OF TO-DAY
Contrast between aristocrats of to-day and their predecessors
— Their fear of democracy — Restlessness of modern life
— Loss of distinction — Three sections of the aristocracy —
Money — Land — Birth and noble blood — The peerage —
Merit — The qualities of a gentleman — The combat of
the aristocracy with the new forces — ^Want of education.
The serious weakening in the political power of
the aristocracy is likely to alter their position
and their character still more as the twentieth
century advances. The change has come about
in due course without disturbance, and will
continue further by natural steps, although the
line of progress in this respect will always
undulate as a result of the forces of action and
reaction. Even in fighting the battle to retain
their ascendancy the nobility and aristocracy
showed themselves as a body with a very few
individual exceptions poorly equipped intellectu
ally, blind and ill-informed. They are out of
sympathy with progressive thought, yet many of
their followers cannot fail to recognise that stag
nation is fatal. They fear democracy, and con
stantly invoke the nightmare of some hideously
135

136 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
painted monster they call socialism. They stop
their ears to what they describe as popular
clamour, and strive to remain isolated in their
own fool's paradise.
" Apparently they are not only proud they
do not understand, but also proud that they
understand that it is better not to understand." *
When their interests come into sharp conflict
with the interests of the people they are being
forced to give way. They look for the day when
the party that champions their cause may be
returned to power, and when they may hope to
have some of their privileges restored to them.
Although they may point to the past when distin
guished members of their order held prominent
positions, they must remember that in those days
they were without rivals. They held undisputed
and unrestricted sway in a field which had
become their own preserve. Now that many of
them have to compete with the common herd,
they are showing themselves singularly ill -pre
pared and utterly outclassed, not because they are
constitutionally devoid of talent or ability, but
because the preparation of their minds and their
general education is so deplorably neglected.
Indeed, the modern aristocracy are made of
very different stuff from their predecessors. The
type has deteriorated with surprising sudden
ness. The grace and tact, the fineness and court
liness of previous generations have vanished. In
their leading characteristics our twentieth -
* Price Collier, " England and the English."

THE ARISTOCRAT OF TO-DAY 137
century aristocrats show that the very existence
of a leisured, privileged class to-day entails the
absorption in it of some of the worst social
qualities which we as a nation are capable of
producing. Gentleness and sympathy have given
place to condescension and patronage, deference
and courteousness to arrogance and conceit.
Where the father or grandfather was grand
seigneur, the son or grandson is bon prince,
in other words the old unassuming dignity is
superseded by patronising pomposity. Their
manners and speech, their self-complacent pride,
would have made their fathers blush. Prices
and incomes are very important considerations
with them, and the Stock Exchange is closely
watched. Finding their chances of reserving
posts of public importance for themselves
diminishing, they are, as already pointed out,
inclined to fall back on money as a power they
can wield with some effect. They frequently
marry only with a view to gaining this power.
American and commercial wealth are brought in
to bolster up their declining fortunes, and they
welcome into their ranks many whose sole claim
to prominence is the magnitude of their riches.
Thus the contagion of a vulgar commercialism
spreads. About fifty years ago W. S. Landor declared,
" Never have I seen more perfect gentlemen than
among the English nobility." To-day it will
be more appropriate to use the words of Dean
Stanley : " There is no earthly thing more mean

138 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
and despicable in my mind than an English
gentleman destitute of all sense of his responsi
bilities and opportunities, and only revelling in
the luxuries of our high civilisation and thinking
himself a great person."
They are obliged to have a closer knowledge
of domestic politics than their parents had, in
order that they may arm themselves against pro
gressive democracy, which they regard as a
hostile force. " Democracy," as the Duke of
Northumberland says, " is simply that kind of
government which invariably prevails in one
form or another in the decay of a State." * Their
growing unpopularity is a consequence of the
defensive attitude which those not sure of their
ground tend to assume. Finding the stream of
popular feeling turning against them, they are
becoming defiant, and descend from their
pedestals not to mix with the throng, but to
terrorise and cajole them. It would be unfair
to blame them for being victimised by the craving
for publicity and advertisement, which is one of
the ugliest features of our time. The very gang
that wants to toady and extol them only succeeds
in making them look ridiculous and contemptible.
While we read of their forefathers in the
mellowed pages of memoirs and letters, we are
supplied with intimate details of their own lives
recorded with illustrations for monthly, weekly,
and even daily consumption. Unfortunately,
there are many more of them who submit to
* House of Lords debate, May 16, 1911.

THE ARISTOCRAT OF TO-DAY 139
and even enjoy this treatment than there are
who protest. Even one generation back a peer
expressed his utmost disgust at finding a list
of one of his house parties published in the
newspapers. The old aristocracy were sometimes regarded
as patrons of literature, but this is a function
their successors have entirely abandoned.
Theirs would be the last opinion to be consulted
on literary matters. Any one must be struck in
visiting an old country house to see on the
library shelves a full collection of eighteenth-
and early nineteenth -century literature— Claren
don, Robertson, Gibbon, Scott, Byron, Bewick,
Thackeray— but on the tables, for the daily con
sumption of the present owners, magazines,
vulgar weekly periodicals, and a few lending
library novels. They are no longer classical
scholars like their grandfathers, and the time
has passed when a false quantity would be met
with jeers in the House of Commons. The
gentleman of to-day cannot quote Latin or Greek,
nor has he ffiled the blank with a proficient
knowledge of anything else.
Here and there, it is true, the old distinction of
the past may linger in some quiet corner, but if
it does it is in a sad and depressed retirement.
The atmosphere of hustle and rush, in which
most of them now live, may perhaps prevent
their developing the qualities which belong to
a quieter age. First of all advantage was taken
of trains, and now of motor-cars, to increase

140 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
the restlessness, and to prevent time being
allowed for reflection. "There are people of
the highest rank in the England of to-day whose
existence is as much nomadic as that of Red
Indians in the reserved territories of North
America. You cannot ascertain their where
abouts without consulting the most recent news
papers. Their life may be quite accurately
described as a return, on a scale of unprece
dented splendour and comfort, to the life of
tribes in that stage of human development which
is known as the period of the chase. They
migrate from one hunting-ground to another as
the diminution of the game impels them. Their
residences, vast and substantial as they are, serve
only as tents and wigwams. The existence of
a monk in a cloister, of a prisoner in a fortress,
is more favourable to the intellect than theirs." *
This was written before the era of motor-cars,
which have enormously extended the spirit of
restlessness, and popularised mere locomotion as
a serious occupation.
The aristocracy with their money are more at
the mercy of the advances of mechanical civilisa
tion than other people, and the effect of the
change is, therefore, more noticeable in them.
It is as if a smell of wood fires and fragrant
violets had been overpowered by the fumes of
petrol and the smoke of cigars. The change of
manner is indicative of a change of disposition.
The manners of a gentleman were a reflection
* P. 6. Hamerton, " The Intellectual Life."

THE ARISTOCRAT OF TO-DAY 141
of the way the world regarded him. The world
smiled upon him. He was conscious of this and
was ready to smile back. Now that he can no
longer e.xpect immediate approbation and admira
tion, but has to be on his guard against criticism
and attack, he ceases to smile. His winning
cordiality is disappearing, and a sort of nervous
defiance is taking its place.
Deprived of their power, and without occu
pation, the aristocracy — as we must still call
them, though no more inaccurate name could
possibly be found — have lost their distinction, and
many of the moral attributes which fortified them
in the upright discharge of their duty in the
past have vanished. They must recognise that
the adulation and flattery with which they are
surrounded cannot be mistaken for true apprecia
tion and commendation of their powers and
talents. They seldom rise above the level of
mediocrity. Physically, morally, and intellectu
ally, they are a species in a steady decline, and
there is every reason to believe that they are
conscious of it. The truth is that the moment
of full ripeness of these hothouse grapes has
passed, and they have begun to shank and shrivel.
The society which these people form and
regulate with their habits and customs we all
seem to know, because of the snippets of infor
mation that catch our eye in every newspaper,
or the details of high life of which we read while
we sit in the dentist's waiting-room. It is the
target for much ill -directed abuse and the subject

142 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
of much fictitious glorification. But a descrip
tion of it in the psychological or sociological
sense, though frequently attempted, has never
been successfully done. Authors and playwrights
catch glimpses into this inner circle, specially
when they are taken up as the fashionable furore
of the moment. But the best of them, even though
they may be dazzled for a time by, the glamour,
never abide within the portals, otherwise they
would cease to do decent work. The sketches
and representations they give are, therefore,
superficial, inaccurate, and lacking in real first
hand knowledge. On the other hand, those who
live within the pale, partly from incompetence
and partly from reluctance to betray their friends,
are quite incapable of Writing any itude de
mceurs that would be worth having.
Roughly speaking, the so-called aristocracy
consists of three sets or sections, not clearly
defined at all, but for all that more or less
distinct. Of course there are a number of non
descripts who may be difficult to classify. They
hover around, and would be glad to be included
somewhere. , i^ J ' i [tj |
Firstly : There are the strict, hidebound, ultra-
reactionary, intensely class-conscious families
who are old-fashioned, fearing lest the change
of one habit might endanger their uncom
promising hatred of everything modern, though
they would accept modern improvements which
add to their personal comfort. They are entirely
out of touch with modern thought, and suspicious

THE ARISTOCRAT OF TO-DAY 113
of novelty in any shape. They are ignorant and
intensely proud of their prejudices. They obey-
all conventions. They expect absolute subser
vience in those who work under them, -and they
can count hundreds who hold them in awe and
reverence. Secondly : There is the sporting set, some
merely happy-go-lucky, some frankly dissolute,
devoting their lives to hunting, racing, shooting,
and other forms of sport ; utterly uneducated,
wildly extravagant, reckless, thoughtless, and
vaguely apprehensive that certain movements are
on foot which seem designed to deprive them of
some of their fun. They are toadied and
encouraged by a large band of followers, whom
they love to patronise with easy familiarity. They
are no believers in education for the masses.
They find the " lower orders " with whom they
associate, i.e., jockeys, bookies, keepers, gillies,
valets, and grooms, are in no way discontented with
their lot. They are supposed to be a thoroughly
British type, and they are immensely, popular.
The third section, in some ways the most
important, is more difficult to describe. They
are the leaders who are in close touch with public
life. The " smartest " functions in the social
world are organised by them. They pride them
selves on a high level of intelligence, and on
knowledge of current affairs and of the most
modern literature, music, and art. They
patronise the leading men in every sphere, and
even theorise about Social Reform. Professors,

144 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
litterateurs, and artists are enticed into their
houses to meet there accomplished conversa
tionalists, and left in the lurch when they have
served their purpose. They may even attempt
to cast their net wide enough to include a promi
nent Radical Minister, or even a Socialist. Any
thing sensational is valuable. Worldliness,
superficial brilliance, and seemingly advanced
ideas make them very prominent and much
sought after. No one would dispute their social
gifts or their attractive qualities. There is a
dazzling aplomb about them which carries all
before it. Critic and enemy alike, once within
their orbit, come willingly under the spell. They
are more responsible for the general tone and
manners of society than the other two sections,
because all the substrata in London and the
provinces look to them for a lead. Section No. 1
regard them with disapproval, and they regard
Section No. 1 with contempt.
There is no hard and fast line between the
different sets, they intermingle and amalgamate,
and in the face of danger they will combine and
co-operate. A sense of property and pride in
possessions unite them. They are linked together
by a consciousness of being well-bred, superior,
and benevolent, not to be confounded with the
people. Theirs is a metal that is unalloyed and
specially hall-marked. But society, from the
King to the dustman, is graded in a vast number
of sub-divided classes, sections, or cliques. They
overlap and intermingle, but are conscious,
nevertheless, of their distinctive differences.

THE ARISTOCRAT OF TO-DAY 145
A description of the aristocracy is incomplete
without some reference to the very much larger
class of would-be aristocrats, who with sufficient
means can imitate to the life the type they
admire. This set is very class -proud ; they
would hotly resent being confused in any way
with the middle class, but they cannot boast of
the pretence of noble blood or distinguished
ancestry, though a peerage or two may come
their way. To a stranger their lavish entertain
ments could not be distinguished from those of
high society, but a true connoisseur would know
that very few of the people disporting them
selves in their ball-rooms or staying in their
country houses would be found to frequent the
holy of holies. They are more aristocratic than
the aristocrats, they are " high born," without
being " well-bred." They pose to their social
inferiors as the real thing. They have no trace
of distinction of any sort. In the social sense
only are they gentlemen. They have climbed,
and are climbing still. As a Japanese observer
remarks, they are " more like some rough wood
covered with varnish than some well -planed and
polished wood. Varnished wood often looks
smoother than any self-polished wood. But the
latter is much safer. Indeed, I have seen so
often that the varnish was cracked and some
ugly grain appeared from inside." Their hatred
of democracy is intolerant and bitter. They
never feel quite secure in their position. This
makes them inconsiderate and ill-mannered with
10

146 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
subordinates, and ready to discard any who cease
to be useful to them in their social ambitions.
They fear to make friends with unconventional
people lest they should lose caste with their own
set. The gentleman's capacity of being able to
make friends with anybody is beyond their reach.
They are snobs, but without the naivete of those
Thackeray described, and with a good deal more
pretension. One day a more dominant position
might be theirs under the shadowing wing of an
unmixed plutocracy. It is true enough that in
herds men behave very differently from the way
they would as individuals. But it is with the
impulses of the herd that we have to deal.
It may hardly seem credible that any of the
sections of society here described signify, or that
it matters in the least what particular form
their frivolity takes. There is something almost
nauseating in the exceeding comfort, the cloying
surfeit, .the callous contentment, the stagnant
indolence, the self-satisfied sleekness of the
thoughtless well-to-do. When one thinks of
the great national concerns, the problems of
the wage-earners, the great life of the millions
who are struggling, fighting, working, and all
the while contributing ; when one considers the
achievements of the creative arts, the mysteries
of science, the ceaseless vigilance of the human
mind inquiring and searching for better things,
the whole throbbing pulse of active human life :
and then turns to these little lordlings and
their satellites, their admirers, and their mimics

THE ARISTOCRAT OF TO-DAY 147
selfishly isolated in busy idleness, surrounded by
their ideals of fashion and vanity, it is like turn
ing from a volume of Shakespeare to read Comic
Cuts. But unfortunately they do count because of
their economic and their social position, and the
lingering traces of their political power. Their
social value, however, does not depend on how
much they create and produce, but on how little
they waste. The waste is great, and therefore
their social value is no doubt low. However they
may act, and whatever they may do, the super
stitious belief in them remains profound. In
credible nonsense is talked about them by those
—and there are many still — who pin their faith
on the ascendancy of an aristocracy nationally
as well as socially. These supporters of theirs
contend that there is an essential difference of
caste, a real inherent superiority and a refine
ment which only surroundings such as theirs
can produce. And they will declare that the
attacks against them are only caused by the
jealousy and envy of the discontents, who are
painfully conscious of their own inferiority and
incapacity to transform themselves from sparrows
into peacocks. There can be little hope of clear
ing away the thick jungle of snobbishness when
real appreciation of pomp and circumstance,
quasi-religious reverence for rank and titles,
and heartfelt yearnings for smart fashions and
riches grow thick and wild. This is the case
in a very large section of the community to

148 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
whom such things have become attractive, partly
because they are strange and out of reach and
partly because they appeal to uneducated minds.
Let us take the chief elements on which an
aristocracy can rely. There are three— money,
birth, and merit. With regard to money the
present writer does not desire to go over ground
that he has already attempted partially to cover
elsewhere.* It is enough to say that an aris
tocracy cannot recover , its power by turning
itself into a plutocracy, ftn so far as they accept
the possession of riches as a sufficient passport
for the admission of any one to their select
society, they are doing a bad service to society
in the larger sense of the Word. In so
far as they encourage reckless extravagance,
and place their seal of approval on senseless
luxury and on an absurdly high standard of
living, they are vulgarising social life and be
traying their trust as guardians of manners,
habits and customs, which thousands of others
attempt to imitate. And so far as they expect
to gain power by increased wealth, they are
deluding themselves in supposing that the in
creased responsibility which riches give them
is one that they are capable of discharging
honourably, adequately, or with advantage.! They
will be ousted and exploited by those with whom
they are making an alliance, the hard-headed
genuine plutocrat, who is not hampered by any
of the squeamishness and refinements which
* " The Camel and the Needle's Eye."

THE ARISTOCRAT OF TO-DAY 149
some of the more old-fashioned gentlemen may
still retain. The gain they hope for is fictitious
and delusive ; nothing will contribute more surely
to their absolute downfall than partnership with
the most destructive, unscrupulous, and cruel
force that exists in the world at the present
time. This obsession with regard to riches
shows up as well as anything their defective
education. As a class they are considerably richer
than the corresponding class in any other
country. Their power is still great because it
is territorial as well as social. Taking the
nobility alone, they hold between them over 15|
million acres of the land of the United Kingdom,
with an annual rent-roll of £13,000,000, or
£23,000 each on the average.* It has been com
puted that not one-tenth of the estates have been
acquired for value received. All the rest in one
way or another has been obtained for nothing.
With the land the finest palaces and castles
throughout the country also belong to them.
Would it not be a calamity, it is often asked,
if these splendid old houses, with their great
traditions, their priceless art treasures and their
impressive and dignified households, were swept
away and the properties broken up? The reply
is that nothing can be swept away at a moment's
notice. But the most beautiful, the most digni
fied, and the most impressive abode of the
worthiest of our " governing families " must be
* " Financial Reform Almanack."

150 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
regarded now actually as a form of national trust,
though legally it may be called personal property.
Its merit rests entirely on sensuous enjoyment,
and among the more enlightened minds of the
day there is a natural misgiving as to whether
this princely and lavish method of living can
be afforded in a community in which the evils
and sufferings of poverty are so severe and so
pressing. On the part of "the trustees" them
selves, who cannot as in the past plead ignorance
of how their fellow-men live, there may conceiv
ably be engendered a growing reluctance to take
full advantages of the rights which the narrow
laws of property allow in defiance of the dictates
of the larger precepts of justice and equity.
There are greater rights than the rights of
property — the right of the nation to support
itself, and the right of the people to live. In
creasing land hunger and the cry of the landless
multitude may also make them begin to doubt
whether they are wholly justified in remaining
sole administrators of these vast territories, many
acres of which are given up to sport,* and
whether in fact they are not mainly responsible
for driving people into the fetid slums of over
crowded cities. As landowners they must expect
in the near future to come in more and more for
* In the six crofting counties of Scotland alone, in the
twenty-five years from 1883 to 1908, deer forest lands in
creased by 1,248,598 acres, while in the non-croftipg counties
the land exclusively devoted to sport in 1908 amounted
to 563,688 acres ("Our Scots Noble Families," Thomas
Johnston).

THE ARISTOCRAT OF TO-DAY 151
direct attack from the growing force of public
opinion, which believes that the land of Britain
should be made " less of a pleasure-ground for
the rich and more of a treasure-house for the
nation." As matters stand it is clear that money
and property are the strongest buttresses of the
aristocracy. They even try to organise forces
ostensibly "for the maintenance of Law and
Order " but actually for the defence of their
power, their property, and their possessions.*
This movement, if it spreads, will amount on
their part to a declaration of class war.
As for birth, it is in itself a very uncertain
and weak foundation on which to base a
demand for special privileges. Moreover, there
is an astonishing amount of fable and myth con
nected with the subject. Even heraldry has now
become scientific, and the critical spirit is
assailing with effective ridicule some of the
products of pedigree-mongers of the past. The
fiction of noble blood is exploded. Even in
the cases where long genealogy of a more or
less authentic nature can be traced are there
any notable and admirable results from the
point of view of breed? If generations of
leisured gentlemen continually marry their rela
tions, who, like them, have no outstanding
physical or mental qualifications, the outcome
must be a degenerate type. If the stock is con
stantly refreshed by the admission of outside
* See the regulations of the " Civilian ^Force." President :
the Duke of Abercorn.

152 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
elements, that is to say, marriage with people
who belong to what is considered a lower social
stratum, the noble blood is contaminated, though
the breed is perhaps saved from deterioration.
Historically speaking, the British peer is not,
like the conitinental noble, the member of a caste.
The privileges that he holds are due to his office
rather than to his blood. But he has formed
himself and his relations into a caste, and boasts,
when it is not too palpably absurd, of his noble
blood. In the direct line his mother may be the
daughter of an American tradesman, and both
his grandmothers and one of his grandfathers
may be people of low and humble origin, but he
inherits the name and can talk freely of "old
family," "good birth," and "noble blood." A
similar descent traced through the female line
may place a man entirely outside the aristocratic
preserve, and his claim to " noble descent " will
not be listened to. The whole doctrine is quite
arbitrary, and will not bear examination for a
moment. No gentleman need be a whit the
worse for being descended from the illegitimate
offspring of a king, from a tradesman, or from
an actress, as many are, only do not let him
foolishly pride himself on the superiority of his
stock and boast of the purity of an ancient
lineage. Does noble descent, of no matter how many
generations, produce refinement — physical or
moral? It would be absurd to declare positively
that it does, because any one with half a

THE ARISTOCRAT OF TO-DAY 153
moment's thought could mention flagrant in
stances to the contrary. Nor does humble origin
invariably produce a coarse type. High refine
ment, not only of feature and limb, but of
disposition and character, can be found in the
meanest home ; and as for the length of
genealogy, many a farmer and countryman
to-day, were he rich and foolish enough, could
trace his descent back in parish registers for
hundreds of years. Our long-established system
of primogeniture has had the effect of constantly
returning a large number of the children of the
aristocracy back to the ranks of the middle and
the lower classes, with the result that there is
more so-called " gentle blood " in the middle
classes than there is in the " upper ten
thousand." As the flowing waters of a river
are continually making deposits, and yet also
erosions, so an aristocracy is always dropping
and picking up links, and any one would make a
great mistake if he were to commend or condemn
a man for the purity or lowness of his birth.
At the same time it is reasonable enough
to contend that an environment which gives,
generation after generation, healthy conditions,
fresh air and good food must in a great measure
invigorate the physique of a class, although to
counterbalance that a process of inbreeding may
often produce highly strung nervous natures. In
human beings, as in animals, there is undoubtedly
such a thing as an underbred look and a look of
high breeding. The former is generally notice-

154 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
able when an individual calls attention to him
self by the extreme pretentiousness of his
appearance. The look of high breeding can be,
and sometimes is, combined with intellectual
inanity. The belief in the fiction of noble blood, other
wise called pride of race, is by no means un
common. There are many who cordially agree
with Mr. Waterbrook in " David Copperfield " :
" Other things are all very well in their way,
but give me Blood." " A man of ancient and
honourable descent " wrote not long ago to the
public press : " Men of gentle birth entitled to
wear swords have ever deemed that the profes
sion of arms was their natural calling, as the
rolls of honour of England, Scotland, and Ireland
amply testify from long before the days of Drake
and Howard to those of Nelson and Wellesley
down to the present day. The foundations of
the British Empire have been well cemented with
the blood of scions of ancient and honourable
families who died for God, king, and country
while leading the way to victory. Neither
journals nor magazines then existed for the most
part to advertise their achievements, and latter-
day critics can form no idea of the feelings of
chivalry which have ever caused men of good
blood to be silent as to their own deeds, and ever
to stand aside and allow others to reap the fame
and rewards that they themselves have won on
many a hard -fought field of battle by sea and
land."

THE ARISTOCRAT OF TO-DAY 155
A very competent critic replied to this.* With
regard to the silence of " men of good blood "
as to their own deeds, he speaks of the Middle
Ages as specially " a braggart age," and adds :
" More than one Elizabethan hero wrote his own
tale for fear that aught of his fame should be
lost, and the practice shows no sign of being
abandoned by our great commanders." To the
argument that " the hard-fought battle by sea
and land " was won as a general rule by " men of
good blood," he replies : " These, it would seem,
are accompanied to the field by certain plebeians
to whom the fame and reward incident upon the
victory are silently handed by the victors. If
this be so, the shy patricians must have suffered
a long vexation from the writings of the
chroniclers and historians who, disregarding the
delicate feelings of chivalry, have from the begin
ning of time given all honour, fame, and applause
to the well-born combatant." The ancient and
honourable descent, the " good blood " of Drake
or Nelson, this critic declares, might be ques
tioned by any genealogist. In conclusion he
adds : " To sum up, let us say that England
had never a noble and gentle caste unless it
were in the yellow-plush days of the early nine
teenth century. It is the business of the anti
quary and genealogist to show that England has
an ancestor in a frieze coat as well as an ancestor
in cloth of gold, and enough reason to be proud
of both."
=!= " What is Believed," The Ancestor, April, 1904.

156 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
A glance at a list of our generals and admirals
to-day will show that " noble blood " is not very
much to the fore. But in time of war an
immense amount of reclame is given to any titled
personages who go to the front, and, with the
same curious disregard for the hundreds and
thousands of plebeians who accompany them,
they are invariably quoted as instances of the
peculiar heroism of our aristocracy.
The peerage, which is by way of being the
reservoir of noble blood, contains only thirty-
seven members who are descendants of peerages
founded before the seventeenth century. A
large number have been recruited during the last
fifty years from the middle class. While this
may help to fortify the physical stamina of the
upper class, it does not prevent incompetence in
the younger generation. Because the middle -
class peer makes a point of having his children
brought up in the orthodox public-school fashion,
and after a generation or two the boast of noble
blood will be made and habits of idleness and
indolence will be fully developed. All the grit
and force of character, which made the first peer
successful, will have disappeared.
It is ridiculous to go on pretending that long
ages of special advantages and power have given
our " ancient aristocracy " a peculiar sense of
responsibility and a wonderful high tone of
perfect breeding.
That generations of leisured high living and
luxurious idleness leave their traces is unques-

THE ARISTOCRAT OF TO-DAY 157
tionably true. It may engender almost invincible
sluggishness of disposition and mental inertia,
and even destroy will-power and capabilities.
But this is another consequence of environment
and confirmed habit, not of blood. The tricks
of heredity, the intricate and untraceable inter
lacing of human relationships, even in a society
that may be divided up into hard and fast lines
of classes, make any generalisations founded on
the argument of birth utterly unsound. The two
curious but simple facts that every man must
have one thousand and twenty-four direct
ancestors only ten generations ago, and that a
man ten generations ago can easily be the pro
genitor of ten times that number of descendants
in the present generation, may make us hesitate
to dogmatise about noble blood and the in
heritance of special qualities. If, indeed, it could
be demonstrated that only men whose names
appear in the peerages had the moral charac
teristics of a gentleman in the highest sense, or
even if it could be proved that all whose names
do appear in the peerage possessed these par
ticular characteristics, there might be some
foundation for an argument. But neither of
these assertions is in the least true.
" How dark lies honour hid ! and what turmoil
In all things human : sons of mighty men
Fallen to naught and from ill seed again
Good fruit : yea famine in the rich man's scroll
Writ deep, and in poor flesh a lordly soul." *

* Euripides, " Electra," Gilbert Murray's translation.

158 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
So much for property and birth. As Disraeli
said in one of his books, " Greatness no longer
depends on rentals, the world is too rich ; nor
on pedigrees, the world is too knowing."
This brings us to merit, the only sound basis
upon which anything can be claimed, and the
possession of which would in itself prevent any
man from seeking undue privileges or advan
tages which can only, be gained at other people's
expense. Were money and birth the sole con
siderations to be taken into account in examining
the position of the aristocracy of to-day, no wise
man would hesitate to advocate the annihilation
of the whole class.
While admitting that there are many men not
of the aristocracy by any extended meaning of
the term who are gentlemen, and many members
of the aristocracy who are not gentlemen, we
are prepared further to make the admission that
in the moral attributes and qualifications that
go to make up the gentleman in the highest sense
—we now leave behind the class sense — there is
something definite, recognisable, and worth
preserving.
" ' What is your parentage ? '
' Above my fortunes, yet my state is well :
I am a gentleman.' I'll be sworn thou art ;
Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit
Do give thee fivefold blazon." *
To attempt a definition is perhaps a presump
tion, considering the numerous books that have
* Shakespeare, " Twelfth Night."

THE ARISTOCRAT OF TO-DAY 159
been written on the subject in the past. Some
idea of the extent to which the subject has occu
pied the attention of writers in all ages can be
gathered from an interesting collection of extracts
which has lately been put together, and which
in itself forms a large volume.* Taine, in his
notes on England, said : "I endeavour rightly
to comprehend the epithet so essential — ' a gentle
man.' It constantly recurs, and comprises a mass
of ideas wholly English. In France we have
not the word because we have not the same thing,
and these three syllables, as used across the
Channel, summarise the history of English
society." An exact parallel does not exist indeed
in continental countries.
Even the oldest writers recognise that money,
birth, and title were not essentials for a
gentleman. It is a positive relief to find
something which cannot be estimated on the
money basis. Money can win a place in Parlia
ment, a peerage, a position in Society, and ,
academic distinctions, but it cannot make a man,:.
a gentleman. James I. is supposed to have'
remarked to a lady petitioning him to make her
son a gentleman, " I could make him a noblemariy
but God Almighty could not make him a gentlej
man." It depends on character, temperamen^;
and moral outlook, and has nothing to do witli
etiquette, deportment, and ceremonious be
haviour, about which, it seems, numberless
booklets continue to appear. Nor has it any con-
* Smythe Palmer, " The Complete Gentleman."

160 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
nection with " gentility," which is a very remote
imitation based on punctilious demeanour and
propriety of speech. The courtesy of manner
which is counted for so much might be taken to
be the outward and graceful expression of the
inward possession of certain qualities. But this
is not invariably the case. Hazlitt, speaking
of a gentleman's manners, says : " Manners,
properly speaking, regulate our words and
actions in the routine of personal intercourse.
They have little to do with real kindness of inten
tion, or practical services, or disinterested sacri
fices ; but they put on the garb and mock the
appearance of these in order to prevent a breach
of the peace and to smooth and varnish over the
discordant materials when any number of
individuals are brought in contact together. The
conventional compact of good manners does not
reach beyond the moment and the company." *
Every one knows the studied, polished manner
which vanishes in moments of temper, or when
no one who matters is looking on. It is common
enough, and is often mistaken for the genuine
article. We know, too, the " puffect gen'leman "
or the man who tips highest. But we want to
get away from all the ugly growths that have
either been derived from, or are disfigurements
of, the idea of the gentleman, and try and esti
mate the true notion at its highest value, as an
ideal towards which an aristocracy might more
successfully, aspire.
* W. Hazlitt, " On the Look of a Gentleman."

THE ARISTOCRAT OF TO-DAY 161
The essentials would seem to be : Special con
sideration for others — quite genuine, without the
slightest trace of patronage ; a sense of honour
and fitness, instinctive rather than reasoned,
which has been impressed from the earliest times
by the influence of environment, but has never
been learnt ; refinement in the best sense,
not a foolish sensitiveness on which anything
rough or violent easily jars, but a well -tuned
nature to which low-minded coarseness is
naturally abhorrent ; and finally, a well-adjusted
balance of two qualities that are difficult to
combine — self-confidence and humility. But all
these virtues must be natural ; the moment
self-consciousness or affectation steps in the
whole idea is vitiated. Courage must not
be omitted, both physical and moral. To
give him his due, both in time of ascend
ancy and in the darkest hours of defeat,
a fearless courage has been one of the most
attractive qualities of a true gentleman, and
through this more than through anything else
has he gained respect and admiration. The aris
tocrat has a real advantage in the fact that he
need not be uneasy about his position in the
world. He should be able to stand success with
the same equanimity as he does adversity.
" Prosperity does not search a gentleman's
temper more than his adverse of fortune."
An anecdote * of a trivial incident may be
repeated here, as it is an excellent illustration
* Quoted in Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft's " Reminiscences."
11

162 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
of how the considerate tact of a gentleman may
make him an object of respect and affection to
others : —
A young private soldier had been promoted
from the ranks and given a commission in
another regiment. According to custom, he was
invited to a farewell dinner by the officers of his
old regiment; and, as guest of the evening, he
was placed on the right of the presiding Colonel
and helped to all the dishes first. He was
naturally little used to the ways of the polite
world and the agriments of the dining-table, but
the Colonel did his best to put his guest at ease.
The soup having been served, a servant came
to the guest's side holding a large bowl which
contained simply lumps of ice for cooling the
champagne. The new-made officer did not know
what to make of this bowl. "Ice, sir?" asked
the servant. The Colonel chatted merrily to him
on his left. Others of the party began to per
ceive the dilemma. " Ice, sir? " again asked the
waiter. The guest, in ignorant desperation, took
up a piece of the ice and, not knowing what
to do with it, put it in his soup ! Some of the
younger officers smiled. But when the bowl was
offered to the Colonel, who went on chatting
with his guest without moving a muscle of his
face, he also dropped a piece of ice into his soup.
Those who came afterwards took their cue from
the Colonel or let the bowl pass ; and the novice
breathed freely again to think that after all he
had done the right thing.

THE ARISTOCRAT OF TO-DAY 163
Although the qualities of a gentleman are quali
ties that are well worth preserving, it would be
a mistake to over-estimate their value, or to sup
pose that they suffice for a man's equipment
without further additions. They may even come
to be altogether obscured by the damaging effects
of a modern gentleman's environment and educa
tion. They are only a foundation on which can
be built up talents, accomplishments, and the
higher virtues, or, rather, they are the colouring
element which may give beauty to what is other
wise dull and unattractive. They will help to
imbue the whole with a tone which will increase
a man's influence and imake his talents all the
more serviceable. But if he is to be an idler,
a squanderer of the nation's wealth, or a self-
indulgent trifler, it would be far better if he were
not a gentleman, because then his influence would
not be nearly so great.
It is the fading away of their finest gentleman
like qualities, the increase of the desire for
moneyed ease, the excessive height of the standard
of living, and the extremely low level of mental
and moral refinement that makes the aristocracy
of to-day, who, like their predecessors, cling to
a belief in their own superiority, a fit subject
for closer investigation and scrutiny. It would
be untrue to say that the aristocracy have fallen
from a position of power entirely through their
own shortcomings and delinquencies. They
served not unworthily during the period they
were called upon to take control. But they have

164 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
gradually had to reckon with new forces, and
their first instinct — as, indeed, would be the
case with any body who saw their supremacy
threatened — was to counteract and attempt to
defeat the rise of the rival force, instead of pre
paring to accommodate themselves to its inevit
able triumph. They continue, therefore, to
dispute the claims of democracy and to prophesy
its failure. But their opposition is rendered
singularly ineffective owing to their own lack of
outfit, and the entire absence of agreement among
them on a concerted, constructive, and alternative
policy. Their ignorance is the main cause of
their prejudiced and reactionary views.
No one would be so foolish as to suppose that
any class of society can be transformed in
character by condemnation and abuse. Altered
circumstances, economic and political evolu
tion, will gradually effect changes in due
time. Every animal must adapt itself to its
environment. But it can reasonably be expected
that a better chance should be given to the
coming generation of aristocrats by more atten
tion being devoted to their training and educa
tion. The aristocrat may have advantages, hut
he is not allowed to use them to any good pur
pose. He may have unlimited choice of methods
and means in theory, but in practice his choice
always falls on what is prescribed for him.
As he is willing to pay, it might be supposed
that special opportunities should be afforded him
to reach a high state of proficiency and pre-

THE ARISTOCRAT OF TO-DAY 165
eminence. But instead of this his class is
universally admitted to be growing, intellectually
and economically, the most negligible class in
the community. He submits to the second-rate
because he does not appreciate the first-rate. And
there is no section of opinion in the aristocracy
which desires to exert itself to effect a radical
change. An isolated individual voice here and
there avails nothing ; it can easily be drowned.
Still, it would be unfair to blame him solely
for short-sightedness, when we rest content with
a system of education which gives him distorting
spectacles with which to view the world, spec
tacles that almost make him blind. In the direc
tion of education, and in this direction alone,
can any useful and practical suggestions be made
with a view to strengthening the faculties,
enlightening the mind, and training the powers
of reasoning and moral perception of the
generations that are to come.
It is, therefore, the question of the early
training of the aristocratic and rich leisured class
that must now be considered in full.

CHAPTER VIII
THE INFLUENCE OF HOME
Importance of education — Its objects — Desire of parents to
shirk responsibility — The nurse — The children's sur
roundings — The boys' holidays — The influence of a
home— The parents' duties — First knowledge of sexual
problem — A child's powers of expression — The child's
imagination and reasoning faculty — Personal initiative
— Necessity for attention and sympathy.
The work of awakening and directing the latent
sensibilities of a child is one of unspeakable
delicacy and difficulty. If this were generally
apprehended, the task would be undertaken with
a greater sense of responsibility and far more
studied thought. In time, perhaps, when they are
better understood, parental duties will be more
justly valued, and the status and qualifications of
schoolmasters and mistresses will be raised to
a very much higher level than they are now.
Although so much attention is being devoted to
education in many quarters, it is regarded in the
upper class as a very ordinary process, which
works of itself and is regulated by accepted con
ventional precepts. When it succeeds it is the
system that is responsible ; when it fails it is
the individual child that is to blame.
166

THE INFLUENCE OF HOME 167
The reader must be reminded that it is impos
sible to speak of any one branch of education
without touching points that affect education in
general, and although some of the strictures
which will be made may be equally relevant to
the education of other classes, we are here dealing
with one particular class alone.
Let no parent be under the delusion that the
established system for the training of gentlemen
is satisfactory, and that so long as they obey
certain accepted rules and fashions with regard
to the home life of children, and duly select the
most popular schools for them to go to at
a certain age, they have discharged their duties
to the best of their ability. It is a much more
intricate business than that. No rules or
regulations, however fashionable or generally
accepted, are necessarily applicable or suitablie
in any one particular case. As for the schools,
they must be dealt with separately.
The true object in the education and training
of children would seem to be twofold. First, the
careful development of their individual characters
by the proper cultivation of their faculties and
talents ; and secondly, their training and adapta
tion for the service of citizenship. These should
never be lost sight of.
Though strides in advance have been made we
are still very far from having reached any satis
factory system of education. The sum total of
human knowledge has greatly increased, and this
country does not lag behind either in its con-

168 THE DECLINE OR ARISTOCRACY
tribution to the common store or in its utilisation
of the advantages of knowledge. But in the
elementary and secondary education of the
children of the rich there is a very conspicuous
lack of progress and a very deleterious
conservatism. The ostensible object in the education of a
gentleman to-day seems to be to prepare him
to pass the necessary examinations for certain
specified professions, and in those cases where
no profession is in view to let him pass through
the recognised course which is considered fitting
for one who is to hold a position of leisured
prominence. The early training of the boy, in
fact, has only one object, which is to prepare
him for his school. The girl's case till quite
lately was in some ways a more flagrant and
hopeless story of neglect. She was hardly
grounded in the elements of any branch of
learning, for no thought was taken or prepara
tion made for any future occupation. An eighth
part was spent on her of what was devoted to
the boy's schooling. It was only necessary to
give her a superficial burnish which would make
her a brilliant and attractive commodity in the
marriage market. This is the object still. But
girls' schools recently established and un
hampered by stale traditions are now, more in
vogue. A certain sort of education is provided
for girls which places them sometimes on a
higher intellectual level than their brothers.
A number of parents practically wash their

THE INFLUENCE OF HOME 169
hands of the whole process. We have seen how
in past centuries this was an aristocratic charac
teristic. In the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries it was neglect combined with hard
ships. Children were left to associate with ser
vants, whose coarse habits they copied. Now it is
neglect mixed with pampering, expensive toys,
seaside trips, lai-ge nurseries, schoolroom foot
men, which are all as so much poison without the
one thing that matters — a mother's companion
ship. The care of small children is considered
tiresome, uninteresting, and troublesome. Parents
find it exacting and perplexing ; it impedes the
performance of the normal round of pleasures
and amusements. Child-bearing itself is nuisance
enough, but if after that they are to exercise
unceasing vigilance and forethought, to make per
petual decisions, give advice, judge when and
how to interfere, and, more important still, when
not to interfere — in fact, devote their lives to
such a humdrum and dowdy occupation, it would
be absolutely intolerable.
Get a competent nurse, see as little as you
can of the children in the early crying days ;
engage a good governess and tuck them all away
in a wing of the large house, out of sight and
out of hearing, with their own retinue of servants.
In the evening let them troop into the drawing-
room with their bright sashes, white frocks, little
sailor suits, miniature kilts, and frizzed hair.
" What darlings ! A kiss all round and now run
along." Discuss their characters with your

170 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
friends, having ascertained what their characters
are from an occasional ten minutes' talk with
the governess. Find out the name of the best
private school — the best will probably be the one
where you pay most — and for a Public School,
of course the one to which your husband went,
and there you are. Simple enough and very
little trouble— till afterwards.
This may not be quite the ordinary course, but
let no one suppose that it is not very common,
especially where money abounds. Speaking more
generally, there is undoubtedly a widespread
tendency to avoid responsibility, or to misuse
or renounce the particular authority which
parents alone can wield. Even the advanced new
woman affects to despise domestic duties. She
has persuaded herself that scholastic and pro
fessional attainments are superior. Man having
legally a position of superiority, she concludes,
therefore, that his occupations must be in them
selves superior. Domestic duties in reality, and
more especially the early care and training of
children, though far less showy and recompensed
by no credit and public renown, are a most vital
concern in the organic life of the community, and
are essentially remunerative in the long run.
Moreover, it is an infinitely more difficult task
to perform efficiently, hence no doubt the
tendency to shirk it.
The servant to whose care the child is entrusted
has a serious responsibility thrust upon her. A
nurse who commands high wages is supposed

THE INFLUENCE OF HOME 171
infallibly to be a good nurse. But her work,
unlike that of other servants, is not mechanical.
She has not to deal with food and furniture, but
with human beings. Her high wages may only
mean that she has had experience of large house
holds. No price can indicate the extent of her
understanding of or sympathy with children.
Such knowledge and sympathy are not to be
measured by any sum of money. They are
inborn human qualities which a quite inex
perienced nursery maid can possess. A nurse,
therefore, who gets £60 a year or more need
be no real acquisition so far as the early training
of the child is concerned. But often the pay
ment of good wages satisfies the parents that they
have done the best they can for their children.
In many houses education is certainly not the
highest expense. The cook is frequently paid at
a higher rate than the governess. It is common
for a governess to receive £30 to £60 a year
and less, and it is also quite common for a cook's
wages to be from £60 to £100 a year and more.
In addition to neglect by parents, it may be
the children are made playthings and spoiled,
it may be' that meaningless discipline is enforced
simply for discipline's sake, or it may be that
the powers of direction are handed to strangers,
who, however well-meaning they are, have not
the perception into a child's nature which those
in the position of parents alone can possess.
Parental instinct constitutes almost a sense
apart. Certain parents who, generally speak-

172 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
ing, may be undiscriminating and erratic in their
outward relations, may at the same time be
capable of showing the keenest and truest insight
in understanding the temperamental idiosyncra
sies of their own children. Their relationship
carries with it a subtle faculty of moral
discrimination. As for mental training, the object appears to
be far more that children should be taught than
that children should learn. The governess's
formula is that there are a number of definitions,
dates, names, and phrases that must be " com
mitted to memory." The child knows that some
one will be cross if he does not remember some
thing. Not the love of knowledge, but the fear of
forgetting, becomes the chief incentive to learn
ing. It would be interesting if it could be
ascertained how often when children are declared
naughty and difficult to teach it is really the
method adopted with them that is at fault. The
approved method of teaching is by no means
necessarily the pai-ticular way in which a par
ticular child will learn. Rich parents are
tempted to use their money to withdraw their
children more and more from their own super
vision. The upbringing of small children is one
of the first worries of which they desire to be
relieved. Naturally enough, because the worry,
is considerable, the difficulty real, and the
problem one which seems to have no clear
solution. In addition to the mental preparation, for

THE INFLUENCE OF HOME 173
which the standard is set by the schools and for
tlie defects in which therefore parents cannot
be held responsible, there are many special draw
backs connected with the rearing of children in
the upper classes. Their surroundings are such
as to make them become accustomed at a very
early age to the immediate satisfaction of all their
requirements, to a very high standard of physical
comfort, and to the acceptance, as their natural
due, of service and attendance. What may be
called a project of life does not exist for them.
They cannot be told that all they will have when
they grow up is what they themselves earn. They
are either to have no profession at all, or else
they are told, " You must do something," and
they take up a profession either for a short time
or in an amateur spirit. Even the management
of estates is delegated to stewards and agents, so
that nothing shall interfere with their oppor
tunities for pleasure, amusement, and enjoyment.
; They have, in fact, imposed upon them enforced
leisure, which is the most difficult and even in
soluble problem which any man, rich or poor,
clever or stupid, weak or strong, is ever asked
to face. Lastly, they begin to imbibe the poison
of class prejudice. This is unavoidable in such
an atmosphere. The superiority of the gentle
man and the inferiority of the rest of mankind,
which is personified to them by the servants and
retainers who entirely accept the view, is to them
as fundamental a fact as any law of nature.
Those children whose playground is the doorstep

174 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
and the gutter are simply another breed of
animal, inferior by some unquestionable decree
of providence. Do not their rags and dirt declare
it? It is not the difference between the two,
which may be patent enough, but the superiority
of the one over the other, which becomes an
article of faith, and this form of prejudice spreads
also to the poorer gentlemen's families, and in
rich non -aristocratic families it is not tacitly and
instinctively taken for granted, but it is loudly
and incessantly proclaimed. Such a habit of
mind becomes ingrained. In after years it can
be dissimulated, but never quite eradicated. It
might and could be corrected or mitigated by
school life, but this, as we shall see later, is
far from the case.
The exhausting efforts made for the entertain
ment of boys during their holidays is another
feature of these homes. When the schoolboy
age is reached the sons become the objects of
much interest and trouble and of a good deal
of unnecessary fuss. The organisation of the
holiday time is a wearing task, undertaken often
most conscientiously by parents, and it is the
school system which imposes it upon them.
There must be house parties, cricket matches,
shooting lessons with the gamekeeper, and the
purchase of horses for hunting. The boys must
not get bored ; there must be plenty of fun.
Nevertheless, they yawn as they look from the
window on a rainy day because they have nothing
to fall back upon ; no time has been allowed for

THE INFLUENCE OF HOME 175
the cultivation of any of their inward resources.
And what is all this for? It is to produce the
recognised type of English gentleman, which is
gradually, under modern conditions, proving
itself to be the most useless and by no means
the most ornamental.
The period before going to school and the
intervals at home during school years are without
question the most important and fruitful. The
earliest impressions are the most lasting. The
first beginnings either encourage or repel the
desire for further exploration. But apart from
incidents and instruction, the child's mind
is extraordinarily susceptible to tone and atmo
sphere, and one of its first inclinations is to be
imitative. Its intuitions are mysterious and in
comprehensible. It is always absorbing, and in
every home the successive impressions, whether
of concrete or abstract experiences, present them
selves wrapped in a particular aroma, which is
the outcome of no conscious influence, but a
subtle extract produced by the combined influ
ences of everything, both personal and material,
that goes to make up that home. The parents,
the children, the servants, the friends, the house,
and the country or the town all contribute not
only by their own qualities but by their relation
ship to one . another. Whether the prevailing
tone is one of harmt)ny or discord, beauty or
ugliness, pleasure or pain, it is going to act as
the prime influence in the boy's life.
If the school is a boarding-school, it is doubt-

176 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
ful whether the child should make the break
from his home very early. Children do not learn
more because they begin sooner. The likelihood
is that a boy under ten years of age is not suffi
ciently formed to withstand the influences, not
always desirable, of the herd. He can hardly
yet assert himself, as he is totally without experi
ence, and his coming out very early alone into
the world is likely to prove more harmful to him
than beneficial.
Parents in isolated groups may not be able
to control or alter the system on which our
schools are run. But in the home they have
complete control to strike out their own line.
All parents soon find out that their children are
not going to be moulded just as they wish. They
come up against surprises, perhaps even shocks.
The growth of the flower is a mystery because
it is a flower that has never in all the world's
history grown before. It seems to be like one
and then like another, with the characteristics
of a third and fourth, and then something quite
its own. Neither physically, mentally, nor
morally can one hair's -breadth be added to. its
stature, but its blooms can be blighted and the
buds of originality nipped. It is the soil, the
temperature, and the atmosphere in which it
grows that can be tended and supervised. And
there will be something in the flower that will
bear the imprint of that attention or neglect until
the day it fades and dies.
So important is the home influence that if it

THE INFLUENCE OF HOME 177
is good a boy can be saved from snares and
guarded from dangers in the future, and can
survive without loss of character and indi
viduality the course of education which he is
destined to under'go. If it is bad, or non
existent—that is to say, if he feels drawn by
no ties of sentiment, no recollections of pleasure,
no bond of affection to his home, or to his
parents, or those who stand in the place of
parents to him— if those ties are no deeper than
the perfunctory acceptance of ffiial duties, then
he will become at best a machine-made type.
It is very little use for parents to arm them
selves with preconceived notions and theories
of education. It is equivalent to purchasing tools
before knowing what kind of material is to be
worked. The same tools are not suitable for
wax that would do for wood, or for stone that
would do for iron. The wax is not going to be
converted into stone, nor the iron into wood.
But by treatment and manipulation some powers
of resistance can be put even into wax and some
pliancy can be given even to iron. Will-power
can be strengthened, stubbornness softened,
impetuosity tempered, and sloth repressed. But
the underlying motive power is the individual
tdmperament, which must never be slighted or
ignored. It is more a question of guiding an
energy than of moulding a material. Careful
observation and constant supervision are indis
pensable. " We may lose sight of the child in
our hunt for the method," says Miss Finlay
12

178 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
Johnson in a book in which she tells the story
of a striking experiment by which she revolu
tionised the life of her school.* When she first
came to the school " so little was there of
initiative and originality on the part of the
children themselves that I felt sure nothing short
of a surgical operation, a complete cutting away
of old habits and the formation of a new school
tradition, would meet the case." It is this sort
of bold spirit that is wanted in the education of
the children, be they from the cottage or the
country house.
If parents could by any means make their
children grow up as they wished, the task would
be arduous, but comparatively simple : they.
could be supplied with a fixed code and a cut-
and-dried scheme to follow. But as the most
normal child is full of the unexpected and the
unforeseen, their task, though not as arduous, is
more subtle and more delicate. It requires
primarily what many parents are prepared to
give — that is, personal solicitude and loving
attention. No one can point to unqualified
success, because perfection and complete satis
faction in this, as in everything else, is unattain
able. But many have quite unnecessarily to put
up with bad failure. They may be unaware of
it, or if aware of it they may not know with
whom the blame rests. All parents cannot be
expected to be strikingly original and to display
* " The Dramatic Method of Teaching," Harriet Finlay
Johnson.

THE INFLUENCE OF HOME 179
such perspicacity as to initiate by themselves
an accurately adjusted scheme of education. But
they can be supposed to understand their own
offspring sufficiently well to control methods and
exert influence with a view to securing, at least,
unrestricted freedom of growth.
There is one distinct duty which is almost
invariably neglected. Its neglect matters more
in this class than in any other, because leisure
and money represented as glorious advantages
are going to become deadly enemies, holding
out insinuating allurements which are wellnigh
irresistible. Parents still refuse as a general rule,
whether out of shyness, false delicacy, prudish -
ness, laziness, or stupidity, to inform their
children of fundamental biological truths. From
the hygienic and rational point of view even more
than from the moral point of view boys would
be saved from many dilemmas and dangers if
some of the laws of nature were explained to
them and they were taught the elements of
physiology. After all, the subject of sexual
relations is not an abstract thesis of philosophy,
nor an abstruse science of obscure and outside
interest, but a great reality which vitally concerns
the sentiments, passions, morals, health, and
happiness of every boy born into the world. Yet,
unfortunately, more often than not its discussion
is scrupulously avoided between parents and
children. It remains unexplained, and boys are
left to gather from whisperings, jokes, and
foolish, promiscuous, childish gossip among

180 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
themselves their first knowledge of the greatest
of all mysteries, their first lesson of the role
which as adult human beings they will all have
to play in life, and their first inkling of the most
perplexing of all the problems which are to
confront them when they grow up. It may be
admitted that it is not easy to impart the infor
mation broadly and naturally without rousing
unhealthy curiosity, and without putting a boy
into an uncomfortable state of apprehension and
suspicion. A certain amount of embarrassment
will perhaps be shown, because imparting such
advice is not regarded as an acknowledged
parental duty. But it cannot be urged too
strongly that one sentence from a father or
mother on this subject is worth a series of
sermons or lectures from schoolmasters. The
more sensible schoolmasters would themselves
welcome such a course, and would waste no
regrets over the disappearance of the so-called
innocence of the boys brought under their charge,
which, after all, is only foolish ignorance.
The Public School age is the moment when the
senses and perceptions are maturing, when new
experiences are ripening, and the boy may easily
fall a prey to bad habits and lax views, without a
note of warning being given him. The fatal ex
posure comes. The more careless, the more honest,
the more ingenuous are those who are discovered,
the slyer, the more secretive and underhand easily
escape detection. But, " in order to make an
example," the boy is sent away from the school

THE INFLUENCE OF HOME 181
disgraced. The full and entire burden of blame
is cruelly thrust upon him. It is pretended that
he ought to have known better by instinct. This
means that he ought to have known by instinct
how to regulate and restrain, to him, quite incom
prehensible sensual impulses. He ought to have
succeeded where grown men with experience,
warning, and knowledge fail. Many a boy's
career has been blighted by this treatment.
Not having received in their boyhood any
explanation or advice on sexual questions, young
men can hardly be blamed for treating the whole
matter lightly. The worst consequence is not
so much their accepting the existence of the
prostitute class as a providential arrangement for
the satisfaction of male appetites, but their cruel
insistence on the sternest and most relentless
social rule by which these unfortunates shall
remain for ever degraded, while they themselves
pretend to bear no deffiement from their contact
with what they are pleased to condemn as pitch.
Far too much is made of allowing boys to, what
is called, " buy their own experience." Human
beings are occupied in doing this almost every day
of their lives. Where traps and pitfalls can be
avoided, parents may at least give a warning, not
so much to impress on the children the hurt they
may do to themselves, but to point out cause and
effect, and how by their actions others may be
injured. When we come to examine the Public School
system rich parents cannot be relieved of all

182 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
blame. It is true that they have no control
over the actual curriculum of learning, but they
often insist on a degree of physical comfort which
will not be too severe a contrast to the home life
to which their children are accustomed. It is
this that raises the school fees, and is the prime
factor in creating a separate class of school to
meet their needs, a school where a high price
must be paid not for superior education but for
admission to the privileges of a gentleman's train
ing. Food, clothes, and accommodation must be
above a certain standard. If this standard is not
accepted by any school the parents will send
their children elsewhere. Complaints are made
by educationalists of the lavish and luxurious
way in which boys are brought up at home, and
the injurious effect it has upon their health and
character. A doctor has declared that many boys
" are brought up at home in luxury to such a
degree that the necessary result is the production
of effeminacy." * School authorities are unable
to stand up against this because they are bidding
for the patronage of the richest class.
To go back to the very early age, when the
first dawn of consciousness is breaking, no one
can remember in themselves and no one can
observe in an infant the first germination of
childish intuitions. It is an inward process con
cealed from the outside world. No logical
method nor the application of any scientific treat
ment can encourage or prevent the unfolding of
these faculties. But rough and unsympathetic
* " The Public Schools from Within," 1906.

THE INFLUENCE OF HOME 183
handling may bruise or damage the incipient
growth which ought to be diligently watched.
One may be inclined to wonder whether there
is not a great deal of misconception of the child
nature among grown-ups. The small child is
treated as if all its faculties of thought and senti
ment were exactly at the same stage of develop
ment as its powers of speech and expression.
Even grown men of capacity may suffer from
inability to express their thoughts in the form
of speech. Now children, as a matter of fact,
suffer unconsciously at a very early age from
being unable to express themselves. Their mind,
in addition to its natural intuitions, has, like
a sensitive photographic plate, been passively
receiving a multitude of impressions which have
left their mark and convey some meaning.
Latent mental powers are thus created in embryo
far sooner than is supposed, because the child's
powers of speech are taken as the complete test
of its general mental growth. Every facility is
speech depends for the most part on physical
causes, and the power of expression is a faculty
by itself, and not the representative of all other
faculties. The thoughtful look on the face of a
child, which is frequently interpreted as incom
prehension—" It doesn't understand " — is more
likely inward reflection that cannot yet find outlet
in speech.
Talking to children in foolish baby language,
and treating them as if they had to go through
a period of infantile idiocy, and could be regarded
as toys, is too often adopted as the proper

184 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
attitude. These small beings, if we only knew,
despise these silly antics ; they cannot correct
us, but they are neither amused nor edified.
What children like is to be spoken to from the
first as rational beings and equals. The most
fantastic fun and the most serious information
conveyed in this way penetrate, and are received
gratefully. It does not hinder rampageous fool
ing, because the child spirit is latent in the grown
up and hails an opportunity to escape, but it
puts a stop to the note of patronage and stooping
to another level, which children are quick to
detect, and which spoils the complete sympathy
of intercourse between them and their elders.
Two special faculties exist in most children-
imagination and reason, which, curiously enough,
often go hand in hand. Nearly every child can
be reached through one or the other. The more
they are cultivated the better. Two extra
ordinarily foolish precepts are sometimes heard
in direct opposition to this theory. One is,
" Never tell a child anything that is not strictly
true," and the other is, " Never allow a child
to argue or ask why."
Children, more especially young children, are
highly imaginative ; their fancies may never
become of any particular value in themselves, but
these inward imaginings are dear to them, and
can be made the means of setting up between
them and their elders a perfect medium of com
munication. By utilising and very, gently mould
ing these fancies the first glimpses of the general
vision of life can be given them. The rude

THE INFLUENCE OF HOME 185
suppression of the fanciful exercise of imagina
tion deprives the child not only of a source of
delight, but of one of the most important aids
in its mental and spiritual expansion, and makes
its relationship with grown-up people one of
awe and respect, perhaps, but not of sympathy,
confidence, and love. Unless, however, it is
properly guided, imagination may simply become
a riotous form of inattention. Naughtiness or
mischief, the bugbear of nurses and governesses,
is only misguided energy, and is frequently a
symptom of strong character. In sternly dis
ciplining it out of existence when it is merely
wild, and untainted by deceitfulness, high spirits
may be tamed and individuality may be crushed.
Discipline, in fact, can do harm if injudiciously
imposed. Self-discipline is his really important
lesson. Blind obedience, except in very rare cases,
ought never to be enforced. As early as possible
the child can always be told the why and the
wherefore, treated, as already said, like a rational
being. This naturally entails infinitely more
trouble for the parent. But in addition to stimu
lating the reasoning faculty through his powers
of observation, such treatment will encourage
self-control and independence, and open out the
road to the priceless property of personal initia
tive. Blind obedience means submission and the
resignation of control to other hands. To his
life's end that boy will have an indisposition to
take back the control into his own hands again.
TJiere is a great difference in showing boys

186 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
how to be manly and allowing them to indulge
in a foolish imitation of what they think men do.
So-called childishness is often suppressed in the
desire to bring out as early as possible the manly
characteristics and make the child conform to
an approved model. But childishness is only a
sign of slow development, and its suppression
may mean checking some original growth that
is taking its own time to emerge ; being original
it may be of inestimable value, and none of the
fixed patterns that are substituted for it can in
that case make up for its loss.
It is worth remembering that anything done
badly by a child is worth a hundred times more
than something done well for a child. The child
must take his time, and the proverbial patience
required of parents and teachers comes as a
perfect revelation to any one who undertakes
either of these roles for the first time. The whole
study of a child's mind is one of the deepest
interest. Many books have been written on it,
and many more will be written in future.
But here a concrete problem is presented. The
wonderful country houses, castles, and mansions,
with all the heart of man or child can want, do
not, as might be supposed, provide ideal homes
for children. There is this much to be said,
however, for many of the best homes. With
beautiful gardens and surroundings, beautiful
pictures and objects about them, gentlemen's
children must undoubtedly gain some positive
advantage. A natural good taste and an instinc
tive preference for good style, refinement, grace.

THE INFLUENCE OF HOME 187
and beauty becomes their birthright. In this
respect they are highly favoured by fortune. As
children they cannot be expected to be aware
of these special favours, and as grown men they
too often show an intolerant disdain for those
many less fortunate beings whose taste, style,
and manner are either deficient or artificially cul
tivated. But the wealthy homes in which beauty
and refinement are conspicuous by their absence
have also to be reckoned with, and are probably
more numerous. In either case it is plain that
apart from the attitude of the parents, the general
environment, so far as it is that of plenty, infinite
choice and lavish profusion, is not conducive to
the stimulation of fine mental or moral qualities,
and in the long run does not add to the child's
happiness. By their sagacity and instinctive wisdom
children show this themselves. They will cast
aside an expensive mechanical toy, just given
to them, of marvellous construction and amazing
ingenuity, and return with joy to the cardboard
lid with reels for wheels which they have made
for themselves. Parents may learn a good deal
from the wisdom of their smallest child.
The extreme on the one side of enthroning the
child and sacrificing everything to it, and on the
other side of allowing the child to suffer by
neglect, can be easily enough avoided. Some of
the elaborate educational schemes of faddists are
not greatly to be recommended. But in a gentle
man's home, where all conceivable comforts are
at hand, care, attention, constant watchfulness,

188 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
and natural sympathy tempered by discrimina
tion are within the reach of each one.
No hard and fast rules and regulations can be
laid down on any one of the foregoing points
discussed in this chapter. The most expert
educationalist even would be reluctant to offer
advice. Whatever plan is adopted, the un
fortunate parent may be told how successful the
exactly opposite treatment has been in some
particular case. The attentive, watchful, sym
pathetic parent, who takes infinite pains, may
come across one child of character, spontaneity,
and intelligence whose short training has only
been marked by thoughtless neglect or even
cruelty, or another child of commonplace un
responsive dullness on whom every favour and
advantage has been lavished. But this proves,
not the uselessness of systematic attention, but
the enormous force of the inborn character and
the incomprehensible nature of the spiritual
energy which directs it. Neglect may be accom
panied by freedom, while over -solicitude may
mean constant restraint.
The child of the aristocrat of to-day has a
stiff battle before him. He comes out from his
home possessed only of experiences of ease and
luxury to mount an educational ladder specially
constructed for him. The ladder might have led
in the past to almost any position he wanted.
But to-day he is beginning to feel that it is an
ill -devised and out-of-date appliance not even
warranted to help him to reach an ordinary
standard of efficiency.

CHAPTER IX
THE PUBLIC SCHOOL
Private schools — Day schools — The object of Public Schools
— DiflEerent systems of secondary education — The
powerful influence of Public Schools — Their conser
vatism — Class prejudice — Luxurious surroundings —
Disagreeable nature of mental work — The stereotyping
process — The suppression of originality — The large
class — The master — Examinations — Subjects of study —
Absorption in games — Expenses — The gentleman at
school — Opinion on failure of Public Schools — Strangers
deceived by outward appearances.
Dotted about all over the country there are
institutions known as Private or Preparatory
Schools. These are the channels through which
the large Public Schools are fed. So long as
they charge more than ninepence a week private
schools can escape inspection. It is open to
any one to start an academy for young persons
and to fill it by means of largely fictitious adver
tisements. The sole object of the private school
is to prepare specimens of the proper raw.
material for the Public School mill. Some of
them incidentally are conducted as successful
financial enterprises— high fees and not too high
salaries for the assistant-masters. The masters

190 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
in these schools and even in Public Schools do
not need to have any, special qualifications,
whereas in the elementary school it requires a
certificated teacher to instruct a poor man's
child. Some preparatory schools are much patronised
as suitable reservoirs for certain Public Schools.
"They are all so good now," we are told, "that
it is quite difficult to choose between them." In
what does this assumed excellence consist? They
are unquestionably a great improvement on the
old-fashioned ramshackle happy-go-lucky institu
tions of fifty years ago from the point of
view of health, cleanliness, and comfort. They
have swimming baths and airy dormitories, and
also an admirable games master and a miniature
rifle range. If they succeed in turning out the
approved manly Public School boy, who will
have the right amount of assurance, athletic pro
ficiency, or capacity to win scholarships, they
have accomplished their object. The Public
Schools formulate the demand, the private
schools adapt their curriculum to meet it. A
successful private school may be a very pay
ing concern, but it is an expensive institution.
For board and education a large number of them
charge from £100 to £150 per annum— a higher
sum than the total of wages earned by many a
workman who has to support himself and his
family. But to this must be added a number of
charges which come under the comprehensive title
of extras, and another very serious item, which is

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 191
the boy's clothing, amounting even in these early
days to at least £30 a year. He must be fitted
out with suits appropriate for each occupation,
designed and cut on an approved pattern. How
ever conscientious a private school master may
be, he is obliged to keep in view the entrance
examination to the Public School, and the habits
and customs that prevail in these larger institu
tions, in arranging the curriculum of his own
establishment. Much that has to be said on the
Public School system is, therefore, equally per
tinent in the case of the preparatory institution.
The day school is very exceptional, though one
or two of the larger Public Schools take day,
boys. By this method boys may have the full
advantage of the tuition, and of association with
other boys in games and work without being
entirely withdrawn for long periods from
parental supervision.
A prominent and advanced ex -head master *
recently remarked that it was the fashion in
certain sections of English life to believe that
people should send their boys whether it was
necessary or not to a boarding school. He
declared that was a great mistake. Such a
school was not an ideal school ; there was much
moral and intellectual wastage in connection
with the barrack life of our great boarding
schools. These remarks called forth a great deal of
correspondence, some expressing agreement, some
* The Bishop of Hereford.

192 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
disagreement.* The three main criticisms urged
against a day school system are : (a ) that the
influence of some homes is by no means good,
and it is therefore an advantage for a boy to
be taken right away, ; {b ) that masters have much
greater difficulty in getting to know the boys
if for a large part of the day they are altogether
free from the control of the school ; (c) that
parents cannot choose the best discoverable
school, but have to accept whatever school their
neighbourhood may afford.
The chief objections to the boarding school
in its "Great Public School" form are to be
considered in this chapter. But in reply to these
three points it may be said that : (a ) It is very.
difficult to define a "bad home." If it is a
veritable sink of corruption neither one system
nor the other will save a boy from its evil influ
ence. If it is merely lax and thoughtless, the
presence of the boy in it while he is at the same
time being taught and disciplined will not be
without advantage, not only to the boy, but to
the home. In any case, " had homes " are the
exception and should not be a governing factor.
Moreover, there is no question of day schools
being set up to the exclusion of all boarding
schools, (b) Masters seldom get to know boys
well except through work and games, (c) This
is only true because the present boarding school
is almost universally accepted.
But the main consideration is that parents are
* Westminster Gazette, November, 1911.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 193
glad of the opportunity which the boarding school
system offers to renounce their responsibilities
completely for fixed periods in the year, the
greater cost being of no consequence. And so long
as this view prevails the day, school is not likely,
to be generally popular with the richer classes.
Some of our Public Schools are very ancient
foundations, dating back several centuries, but
the vast majority of them were founded in the
course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Winchester, Eton, and Westminster, and later
Harrow, no doubt formed the model for those
that were to follow. Although it was not the
original intention of the founders, a system came
to be set up of richly endowed autonomous
establishments for dealing with the secondary
education of gentlemen's sons, a system without
parallel in other countries. It is, in fact, very
difficult to explain to a foreigner that we
segregate our upper-class children in special
institutions by charging higher fees, not for
superior education, but for the object of keeping
certain children in a privileged position, free
from the contact of the middle and the lower
classes, because as gentlemen they are supposed
to require the advantage of a particular sort of
training, and, as far as possible, socially un
contaminated surroundings. The view held is
that the divisions of education in this country
should be longitudinal, that is to say, there should
be a differentiation from the outset according
to class divisions. The gentleman's son has his
13

194 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
own educational ladder, the preparatory school,
the Public School, the University, which is
entirely separated and different from education
of the elementary type. The view that the
divisions of education should be latitudinal,
which prevails for instance in the United States,
insures that the secondary school must be com
plementary to the elementary school, in which
all classes alike receive their elementary training.
In Germany there is a differentiation of
schools according to the curriculum adopted.
There is in every school a definite organisation
and aim. The parent is free to choose the
exact type of education he prefers for his
son when he selects either the Gymnasium',
the Realgymnasium, or the Oberrealschule.
We prefer to multiply the different courses
in our Public Schools by instituting a modern
side, an army class, or whatever special
curriculum appears to be necessary, and thus
a good deal of confusion and muddle is added
to the course of study. But the most noteworthy
difference in the German system is the free
adoption of the day school system, which
entirely, obliterates the caste spirit in education
above the elementary level, and thanks to which
the sons of the nobility are not ashamed to sit
on the school bench side by, side with the children
of the trading classes. The British public
boarding school system is the strongest factor
that exists in fostering class jealousy and
exclusiveness. Germany, is an aristocratically

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 195
governed country, and the advantages of their
education system are to a large extent nullified,
so far as class consciousness is concerned, by
their political, social, and bureaucratic system.
We are a far more democratically governed
country, but a full extension of a democratic
system of government is being checked by these
relics, very deeply rooted, of aristocratic
exclusiveness. So long as the vicious circle was complete, the
Public School system was difficult to attack and
could remain undisturbed. That is to say, the
father, well satisfied with his own early training,
which appeared sufficient for him in the high
posts reserved for him in after-life, or in the
leisured ease he enjoyed, naturally desired his
son to undergo a similar course — " What was
good enough for me, my boy, will be good enough
for you." But now there is a break in the
circle, for the father is beginning to feel un
comfortable, prominent posts are no longer going
to be reserved for him or his family, and his
training is even in his own estimation ludicrously
inadequate. He may therefore be asked to some
purpose whether our Public School system has
,not completely broken down, and whether these
exclusive institutions, both in their methods and
organisation, are not in need of drastic reform.
The power and influence of the larger Public
Schools cannot easily be over-estimated. Their
very antiquity helps them. To be able to trace
back the origins of a building, a family, or an

196 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
institution through the centuries and illustrate
the stages of its growth with anecdote and record
gleaned from ancient chronicles, creates a
glamour and casts a spell that enthralls the
historic sense, while it deadens the critical
faculty. Here is a buttress, a window, a doorway
that dates back some hundreds of years. The
buttress now supports nothing, the window is
blind, the doorway is blocked. But who would
destroy them? They tell the story of a bygone
age, linked by unbroken architectural growths
with the present day. Here is a title still extant
though the office it denoted has vanished. Here
a custom which may seem m'eaningless, but its
curious origin is known and we are loath to
abolish it. And so out of parchment and stone
a tradition is fabricated and preserved with the
most reverent care. No one but a vandal would
dare to lay rough hands on such a legacy from
the past. The atmosphere thus created has in
it much of the aroma of museums and of the
Record Office. It can be found in full intensity
round the ruins of a famous castle or abbey.
But although no one would deny its wonderful
charm, it is ahout as dangerous and destructive
to the progressive development of a modern
educational establishment as any evil influence
that can be imagined. A critic may dig his
knife deep down when he is dealing with some
modern school established only a score of years
ago— a school which is perhaps trying to grapple
with the problems as they present themselves

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 197
in their most modern aspect. But should he
even scratch the surface in his comments on one
of our old Public Schools, a shower of execration
will immediately fall upon him. In the former
case he may scoff as much as he likes at new
fangled notions, fads, and experiments. But in
the latter case his remonstrances will always be
solemnly met with the excuse of tradition.
As a science education stands on a footing of its
own, and it would seem to demand a complete
severance from the obsolete and discarded notions
of another age. It is an art as well as a science,
and it requires constant refreshment in order
that adaptability and adaptation to the rapid
changes of environment may be continuous.
The best known of these schools, like the class
they serve, have never been pioneers of- en
lightened thought and new ideas, but they have
lagged behind until the force of outside opinion
has dragged them on a step further. In institu
tions so steeped in conservatism, the more so
when their roots are deeply buried in the past,
the spirit of reform must ever be unwelcome
and unpopular. Surely it is unfortunate that
this should be the state of affairs in England's
largest Public Schools, and yet the task of real
innovation would be almost superhuman in such
surroundings. Even advanced views on political
and economic questions are regarded with
suspicion. A recent instance may be taken of
an event at a Public School recorded in a volume
of reminiscences by one who was educated at that

198 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
School. " It is to be regretted that an agitator was
two years ago allowed to address the school on
the subject of unemployment from the chapel
steps in the school yard. The vast majority
of the parents of Eton boys do not wish their
sons to be taught Socialism, and the school yard,
so closely connected with the old traditions of
Eton, is the very last place where any theories of
this kind should be permitted to be aired. As
a matter of fact the address, which under no
circumstances could have done good, merely pro
voked giggling." * To hear that such a subject
as unemployment should have only produced
giggles from the well-fed sons of rich and pros
perous parents shows how carefully guarded they
are from being allowed even to reflect on great
social problems. But more significant still is the
approving tone in which the incident is related.
It is a true index of the Public School spirit.
" If liberal sentiments are to be proscribed in
the teachers," says one writer in his description
of the large Public Schools, f "if a slavish
adherence to obsolete prejudices is to be con
sidered a virtue, and a disinterested effort to
correct abuses is to be treated as a crime, the
public will do well to reflect whether they can
suffer the liberty of a great Public School to be
restricted without endangering the liberty of
England." On the other hand, the vulgar clap
trap of jingoism or a bloated and arrogant
* « Floreat Etona," Ralph Nevill.
t " Our Public Schools."

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 199
form of Imperialism is supposed to appeal to the
boy mind, and is very much encouraged. Last
year the prize for English poetry was given at
a large Public School to a boy who, having
imbibed these ideas, wrote :—
" England, narrow seas divide thee
From the foe :
Guard the waves lest ill betide thee,
Lest the foe that lurks beside thee
Lay thee low."
This may be good poetry but it is deplorable sen
timent. The combative instinct is fostered, and
hatred of the foreigner, about whom the boys are
taught nothing, is regarded as a sign of patriotism.
Public School boys go out into the world for
the most part ill -educated and saturated with class
prejudice, which is the one thing they are really
successfully taught. No attempt is made to
destroy the confidence which many of them are
taught at home to repose in money— the desir
ability of having much and making more. They
remain jealous guardians of the old traditions
under which they were brought up. The masters,
too, are for the most part " old boys " of the
same school. And so these schools go on, sub
sidised in some cases by private munificence,
backed by the adulation of their own progeny,
bound by conventions, oblivious of failures, and
paying very little heed to the rapid development
in the nation's life outside. In time past there
has been a certain amount of competition between

200 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
them, but in the twentieth century it is not this
sort of rivalry that these schools have to face,
but the approaching wave of an enlightened
democracy, which demands of its agents, its
officers, and its leaders a great deal more than our
Public Schools are at present prepared to give
them. A special word must be said about this class
prejudice, which has already been referred to
more than once. Some of the larger Public
Schools are far more tainted with it than others.
But it would be invidious to particularise, as
none are without blemish in this respect.
Boys * as boys are quite devoid of the conscious
ness of class, they are far too spontaneous, natural,
and trusting. Boys as gentlemen's sons, as shown
in a former chapter, have become thoroughly
accustomed to an atmosphere where service and
attendance are accepted in the natural course, and
where the view that ninetee'n-twentieths of the
race are provided to serve the remaining
twentieth is regarded as a scientific law. Boys
as schoolboys are further encouraged in this
belief when they find that there are institutions
exclusively established for them as gentlemen's
sons, where they need only associate with other
boys who are more or less in similar circum
stances to themselves. The fiction of their
superiority gains ground, though they are told
as gentlemen never to appear conscious of it.
* The inmates of other secondary schools are generally
referred to as " lads " — ^another class distinction.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 201
Some are going to do nothing in particular, others
are to go into the Army, the Church, the Bar, the
Civil Service, or the City, or may become in their
turn schoolmasters. There are other professions
into which gentlemen's sons are known to go
if they happen to be poor, but laborious effort
is irksome, and to sacrifice one's life to an
arduous occupation is regarded as a calamity
which should be avoided at all costs. It may
be noted in parenthesis that the Navy is the one
gentleman's profession that is no longer fed by
our Public Schools. We take the Navy seriously,
and we apparently do not want to risk the chance
of ffiling it with the ill-trained produce of these
institutions. Outside these professions the boy is con
scious of a host of people of the same class
as the footman and housemaid at home — people
who generally leave out their " h's." This leaving
out of " h's " and accent remains for many of
them the ultimate test as to whether people are
" possible " or " impossible." They cannot help
) ! seeing labourers, artisans, porters, cabmen, shop
men at work ; perhaps the hive of a factory
may have been witnessed by some, or the ant's
nest of a mine. But all these people down in
the foundations of industrial life are quite remote
and unknown. Their importance must be
secondary to that of people on the top who figure
I prominently in the public eye. The boys are not
taught to despise them, they simply ignore them.
They have no remote idea of how the wealth of

202 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
a nation is built up, how the business of a nation
is carried on, or even how their own needs and
requirements are satisfied. Why, therefore,
should they know anything of the people who
are chiefly concerned in these processes. No
world really exists for them except the one to
which they belong— the world the Press makes
so much of, in which figure names of the leading
lights of society, of politics, of the Army and
Navy, of the sporting world, of the stage, and,
perhaps, of literature.
The point of view thus cultivated is not the
result of chance neglect, but is intentionally
fostered in order to support the whole principle
of aristocratic government. The curriculum is
arranged not on lines of utility, but to give the
cachet of gentility. The compulsory classical
education was supposed to brand the boy as a
Public School boy, and, therefore, as a gentle
man. The preference for the " humanities " over
scientific studies originates more from their
being a distinction of class than from any
aesthetic appreciation of their true value. It was
because the knowledge of Greek had become the
mark of a disdainful and exclusive caste, and not
because he despised Greek in itself, that Robert
Burns wrote : —
"A set o' dull, conceited hashes,
Confuse their brains in college classes !
They gang in stirks, and come out asses,
Plain truth to speak ;
An' syne they think to climb Parnassus
By dint o' Greek I "

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 203
So strong is this class prejudice that no boy
can go through school-life without to a certain
degree being affected by it. Some people might
prefer to call it class loyalty, and as such they
would be ready to acknowledge that it may
become the ultimate determining factor in
deciding their own preferences and guiding their
sympathies. Its existence, anyhow, is not a
figment of the imagination, but a hard and solid
fact. To quote once more the author of the
Reminiscences : " In spite of Socialists and Senti
mentalists ' all men are born unequal,' and our
ancestors were fully alive to the odious affecta
tion of ignoring social distinctions, which always
have existed and always must exist in every
society." No one, indeed, could visit an average
upper-class family without constantly hearing
jarring remarks by which the members of the
family reveal themselves. The effect of it is
ineradicable, and it produces from the other side
class hatred. " Class antagonism is a very power
ful force, growing rather than diminishing, acting
in all sorts of unsuspected ways, cropping up
in all sorts of unexpected places. Let things
go wrong, make a false step, and in a moment
it flashes out, ' Ignorant fellow,' ' Bloody
gen'leman.' " * When people hold up their hands
in pious horror at violent anti-class invective, let
them consider more closely where the cause for
this class denunciation from the masses really lies.
There can, of course, be no idea of sweeping
* " Seems So," Stephen Reynolds.

204 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
away class differences by the wave of a wand.
Such expressions as " the brotherhood of man "
must, as human nature is at present constituted,
be figures of speech, denoting pious aspirations.
But the basis on which these class differences
now rest is a fair object of criticism, and the
encouragement and cherishing of prejudice
between classes should not be allowed to escape
wholesale condemnation. If the fuller develop
ment of human faculties and talents is the essence
of progress, as we may fairly assume it to be,
and if these faculties and talents are by a system
of sharp class distinctions starved and sterilised
by want on one side, and emasculated and stunted
by superabundance on the other, we may regard
mutual knowledge, mutual sympathy, mutual co
operation, as a means of abolishing artificial
inequalities and bringing to light natural differ
ences in capacity. A change in the educational
process by itself might not suffice to bring about
any appreciable alteration in the present con
dition of affairs. There are numbers of other
political, social, and religious forces which must
assist. But if very special stress is laid on
education it is because, in dealing with youth,
we are really dealing with the future, where the
unrealised hopes of to-day may have a better
chance. One of the artificial agencies which is instru
mental in producing the sentiments described
above, and which from the point of view of
the training of youth is distinctly harmful, is

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 205
the luxurious surroundings of the modern school
boy. The blame rests here more with the parents
than with school authorities, but the evil is one
that is growing because of the increasing number
of the sons of nouveaux riches parents who are
sent to these schools to make fashionable friends
and by that process to be turned into gentlemen.
Organised as they are, how can Public Schools
stand out against the demands of plutocratic
parvenus ?
In the eighteenth century a schoolboy had to
make his own bed, sweep oiit the dormitory, and
put his head under the college pump for a
morning wash. In the last generation even there
was a certain strenuous simplicity about school -
life, and perhaps an occasional element of
physical hardship. The rules of hygiene are now
better understood and can prevent anything that
means danger to health, and the rules of common
sense can prevent an unnecessarily stoical discip
line. But in the food, clothes, accommodation
and routine of the Public School boy of to-day
there is no remote trace of austerity. On the
contrary, there is a distinct tendency to pamper
and coddle, and thereby to soften not only the
physical but the moral fibre of the boys. The
physical side of their lives is made as smooth
and easy as possible, while the real tough, rough,
hard business is reserved for the mental work.
Mr. Arthur Benson rightly says : " We should
never expect a boy to become a good player
at any game unless he enjoyed it, and how we

206 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
dare to exclude enjoyment so rigorously from
our system of education is one of those mysteries
that it is difficult to fathom." How many Public
School boys retain any knowledge of Greek, for
instance, or the smallest desire to continue the
studies of Greek authors unless some examina
tion compels them? An infinitesimal number.
It is not the dryness of Greek literature that
repels them, nor is their general intelligence so
hopelessly obtuse that they are entirely incapable
of assimilating learning of this description. It
is the purposeless and desiccated presentment of
the subject that deprives it of any of its natural
powers of attraction. Punishments and imposi
tions set by way of writing out hundreds of lines,
or learning set passages by heart, have given
boys a lifelong detestation of certain of the
literary classics, and are harlnful in all ways.
A stiff bit of physical toil might be made suffi
ciently disagreeable to be a suitable punishment,
while it would always be beneficial to their
bodies. Mental discipline and the sense of effort
about learning cannot be and assuredly should
not be eliminated. But there is such a thing as
pleasant effort and disagreeable effort. A boy's
work .at school is almost entirely'of the latter sort.
The want of restraint in the matter of expendi
ture on clothes is another outcome of the wealthy
materialistic homes. It produces dressiness and
a foolish appreciation of sartorial smartness and
of the spectacular side of life. There is hardly
any type of human being more despicable than

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 207
an overdressed man except, perhaps, a greedy
woman. Most boys pass through a dressy phase
because the tendency of school is to magnify its
importance. Compare a photograph of a group of school
boys of to-day with one of only forty or
fifty years ago. The comparison is instructive.
In the latter boys will be seen lounging about
in different attitudes with a curious variety of
costumes. If it is a football eleven they will
be in varied and strange garments, with their
trousers tucked into their socks, some bare
headed, some with ill-fitting caps and old
shrunken shirts, others perhaps neater, but
each one individual and distinct. The group of
to-day consists of two or three rows of boys
beautifully turned out with immaculate, perfectly
fitting clothing. In the football eleven each will
wear a cap, shirt, shorts, stockings of precisely
the same pattern. They stand and sit so that
the line of the peaks of their caps, of their
folded arms, of their bare knees is mathematically
level. And even their faces ! You can hardly
tell one from another. A group of military
officers will give the same effect. Wrinkled
tunics, whiskers, unconventional .attire, and
freedom of attitude in one, and in the other
perfect fit (a wrinkle in an officer's tunic is a
worse offence than any fault in his character),
perfect figures, perfect boots, and perfect
symmetry of grouping.
Now no one will say that this can be accounted

208 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
for by the improvement in the tailors' art and
an artistic desire for regularity in the photo
grapher. It is, without doubt, an outward and
visible sign not only of the love of the appear
ance of smartness, but of the stereotyping and
conventionalising effect of our modern educa
tional system. This stereotyping, which in many
other ways is very noticeable, constitutes perhaps
the strongest indictment that has to be brought
against our Public Schools.
It is a grave fault which is common to all sorts
and conditions of schools in Great Britain. But
it is more acute in schools that have to deal
with a restricted class who have already, by the
atmosphere in their homes, been, so to speak,
standardised as a type. The material that has
to be dealt with by school education is the most
puzzling, the most complex, the most mysterious
and unknown that exists in the world. In
geology, botany, zoology, and chemistry the
unknown exists, but its sphere is continually
being further diminished. In psychology, besides
the much larger sphere of the unknown, there
is the realm of the unknowable, and even the
range of the unknown remains practically un
altered by the ingenious philosophic speculations
of succeeding centuries. Now youth is operated
upon in schools at a moment when the psycho
logical problem is most incomprehensible.
Immature brains, unformed characters, un
developed talents, untrained minds make up an
intensely susceptible, very sensitive, quite illusive,

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 209
and yet perfectly docile composition. Let us for
a moment imagine an absolutely ideal set of
influences brought to bear on the complicated
gelatinous material. It would mean the encour
agement and strengthening of desirable, the
repression of undesirable, qualities, and a
general stimulation of the whole nature. This,
of course, involves a superhuman insight into
what is desirable and what undesirable. There
would be a vigilant watching of the various
characteristics, the culture of originality, the
study of temperament. Boys could not be herded
together according to age, any more than they
could be classified educationally according to
height or the colour of their hair. Not even
mental capacity would be the final test, and it
is doubtful if the herding of boys would be in any
case desirable, since each one represents in him
self an entirely fresh problem. But it is needless
to speculate further. This alone shows how
infinitely complicated the problem is, and how
delicate a process the flowering of the human
bud is.
The idea of separate individual treatment is
of course purely theoretic and quite impractic
able. But what of the system which we all seem
to approve? We set up an iron mould and we
purposely and intentionally stamp out and bake
the soft clay into a fixed pattern. We sacrifice
individuality and suppress originality so as to
produce a conventional average type. Uni
formity is the ideal, and as the material is
14

210 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
still malleable, responsive, and yielding the:
stamping process can be carried out effectively.
If the ultimate result were good, the efficacy of
such a system could not be questioned. But
since the utter failure of this clumsy handling
of the mind and soul of youth is becoming more
apparent the voice of protest can no longer be
ignored. It is now known in relation to food
that a fixed diet which in its composition satisfies
all the requirements for digestion and nourish
ment, and on paper comes up to the proper
standard in protein and fuel value, may entirely
fail to be nutritious, because appetite and
digestion depend mainly on the relish and gusto
with which food is eaten, and therefore individual
tastes must be consulted and diversity of taste
recognised if food is to give health and strength
to the body. The mental and moral appetite
ought to be treated in just the same way.
It may be argued that a set, average training
must be decided upon, because it is the average
boy that has for the most part to be dealt with.
The so-called average type, it is probably
thought, wears better in this world and can
stand the strain of life with less emotional
damage. Sensitive and nervous temperaments,
responding readily to exaltation or depression,,
ought therefore not to be encouraged. But where
there is infinite variety there can be no such
thing as an average. It is the unimaginative,
short-sighted method of training from the earliest
years that produces an average type, and that

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 211
average is then declared to be the ideal. Boys
of marked character it may be said will always
emerge and assert themselves in defiance of any
restrictions and limitations placed on their educa
tion. To a certain extent this is true. But the
mischief is that in herding boys together, dividing
them into large classes, and setting up a stereo
typed model of superficial efficiency there is a
great loss of unknown but valuable qualities and
a waste and destruction of embryonic talent, not
talent for scholarship or talent for games, but
a more useful talent, the genius for living. Even
the so-called average boy has distinctive
character, and it is just this treatment that
stunts it and prevents it from emerging. Boys
may be shy of originality or eccentricity, but
it is the schoolmasters who are really frightened
of it, because they do not know how to deal with
it or how to prescribe for it under their cut-
and-dried system. An eccentric or original boy
in a class of from twenty to thirty is merely
a nuisance. His rough edges must be pared off,
and he must be made to conform.
It has been truly said that education is purely
mechanical until the faculty of criticism and
preference has been awakened. If it were not
mechanical, then the boys would become incon
veniently different, and the very inadequate
machinery of the modern school would break
down. There is no need to complain of the
tutorial system, but the large class, which is one
of the engines for stamping the mould, is an

212 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
impossible means of setting up any satisfactory
communication between master and pupil. "It
deprives the boy of the essence of education,
for the hints, suggestions, warnings, and pro
tests spoken to him alone abide more firmly in
his memory than any exhortation given to the
whole class. ... A teacher is not a machine for
keeping discipline or delivering lectures to great
numbers : his highest function is to study an
ambitious boy, to quicken another who is lazy,
to clear another who is confused, to know and
to guide each, not merely to inform all." * The
boys in the class who are slow, unappreciative,
listless, inattentive are at once condemned as
being at fault, whereas it is often the case that
the method of the master is at fault. Precocity
is by no means a sign of sound mental develop
ment. But the precocious boy is generally the
master's favourite. By gaining prizes and
scholarships he will help to enhance the
reputation of the school and act as a sort
of advertisement.
A method that suits nine boys may not suit
the tenth. It frequently happens that a boy who
is a slow developer, whose mind is taking a long
time to mature, appears dull because the rest
are going rather too fast for him. The lessons
are set nearer to the capacities of the majority,
the slow boy loses the thread, loses interest,
is pronounced stupid, and soon becomes dis
couraged. An example might be given of a boy
* " Across the Bridges," Alexander Paterson.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 213
who with one tutor in a small private class was
interested, alert, and easily taught. When he
went to the large class he became bewildered
and listless, he lost contact with the mind of
the master, and failed continually to be up to
the average. Method when applied to a large
number must be unyielding ,and machine-like.
As a channel for the communication of instruc
tion by its indiscriminating character it may fail
even more often than it succeeds. Each unit
differs : some are receptive, others impervious,
some imaginative, others dull, some weakly),
others vigorous, some nimble-witted, others slow.
But the method meanwhile is uniform for all.
A methodically instructed mind succeeds very
often in the examination and comes up to the
worldly estimate of what passes as success. But
compare it with a mind where growth from
within has been encouraged and no superimposed
layers of useful information have been plastered
on from without. The one works according to
method, the other according to instinct. The
former will be capable, proficient, systematic,
working in obedience to set rules and regulations,
accepting authority, concentrating on detail. But
When there is no rule that applies, when a case
arises outside the regulations, when life offers
a problem for solution that has not been men
tioned in the text -books, he flounders and is com
pletely nonplussed. The latter is in the popular
sense ill-informed and hopelessly inept when
confronted with work of a purely mechanical

214 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
nature ; he cannot be relied on for knowledge of
the elements, but, in spite of continual failure in
the worldly sense, he may be capable of remark
able achievements, and is never at a loss. He
is spontaneous, depending on an inward spring
of self-reliance which is unfailing, not on an
outward wash which has been concocted from
other people's prescriptions. Give him a little
sensible and not too stringent disciplinary
method, and cultivate in his fellows the inward
consciousness of the power of initiation and the
value of imagination, and a very much higher
average in results would ensue. Resourceful
ness is a British characteristic. More than this,
it is often a gentleman's characteristic. For he
gets by his varying environment a knowledge
of humanity, of the usage du monde, and, if he
is at all intelligent, a rational perception of the
fitness of things, their applicability and relevance
which a man with a narrow technical mind may
be blind to. But, again, resourcefulness is
not positive enough in itself nor powerful
enough by itself ; it requires a substructure of
knowledge. The system which aims at prizes and class
lists makes another victim in addition to the
boy, and that' is the master. But he is not to
blame, because the task of instructing properly
twenty to thirty boys is a physical impossibility.
It is curious that masters, if they are picked men,
should so readily submit to these restrictions.
They are generally picked for their scholastic

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 215
attainments or athletic prowess, and not for their
teaching capacity. A comparatively uninstructed
man may make an extraordinarily good teacher,
while the ripest scholar may be a complete failure
in that capacity.
But in the long run the master suffers as much
as the boy. The instrument is blunted by being
wrongly guided just as much as the material is
injured. You may spoil the edge of a chisel by
holding it at the wrong angle just as much as
you may tear the wood. Year after year the
masters watch scores of boys passing through
their hands, and within the narrow confines of
a well-worn groove they despair of making the
impression or exercising the influence they want.
They are driven along and forced to acquiesce.
Their efforts are deprived of all spontaneity, they
are cramped, and in time can hardly resist
becoming stale and indifferent. Their lack of
inspiration, of freedom, of zest begins to react
on succeeding generations of boys. No other
profession exists in which the difficulties are so
complex and unrecognised, the temptations so
insinuating, the credit accorded to which is
so slight, and the profit derived from which is so
scanty. " A noble profession if a man is fitted
for it by moral and intellectual gifts and will
throw his whole heart into it ; and also the most
dreary and dishonest of professions if under
taken only for the love of gain or hope of prefer
ment." * And yet there is no calling that is
* " College Sermons," B. Jowett.

216 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
of more vital importance in the life of an
individual, of a community, ,and of a nation.
Any desires masters may have for change or
reform soon vanish, they become inured to the
system and accommodate themselves to its limita
tions so successfully that they often end by
defending it. But the case of the master is a
thesis in itself and must not be pursued
further. The settlement of the larger problems of
education must be dealt with outside the walls
of schools. But in many minor matters the old
Public Schools have so strong an influence that
they might well set a better example. No modern
seminary, however enterprising, can hope to com
pete with the accumulated strength of an ancient
reputation. But there is very little possibility
of any alteration in the pernicious stereotyping
process so long as five hundred to a thousand
boys are congregated together with an average
of one master to thirty boys.
A further obstacle to the production of a high
standard of general industry has to be met in
the richer schools, because so many boys have
no prospect of having to earn their own living
and are therefore careless as to learning. They
will only do what they are forced to do. " It
is the misfortune not the fault of Eton that she
harbours so many eldest sons." *
It is usual to bestow almost unqualified praise
^-, * The Right Hon.^ Alfred Lyttelton in " Great Public
Schools."

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 217

on our Public Schools,* and successful results
are quoted as proof of the excellence of the
system. But any one who is a believer in the
natural characteristics of the British race will
know that there are certain innate qualities that
make the original material exceptional, and its
superior quality is apparent even after it has
gone through this very indifferent treatment. It
is in spite of and not because of this training
that any are able to distinguish themselves in
after life.
It would be untrue to say that there are no ad
vantages. So far as boys derive from their school
associations a sense of loyalty, of esprit de corps,
a reverence derived from inspiring surroundings,
an appreciation of corporate action, self-reliance,
and a proper instinct for honourable dealing and
for consideration of their fellows it is all to the
good. But in so far as they are prevented from
developing on natural lines, in so far as they
are subjected to a rigid mechanical discipline,
and impregnated with a class-conscious conven
tional view, learn to hate their work and are
taught to worship worldly success, they will suffer
severely. Some may do well in the various
positions of responsibility which are allotted to
them ; but how much better might many of them
do if only their training were the result of
some scientific guiding principle, instead of a
* " . . . Eton to my mind is the supreme scholastic
educational establishment in the whole world."— Lord
Rosebery at Eton Society Centenary Dinner, July 14, 1911.

218 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
haphazard set of customs based on a narrow
tradition. The instruction they get is regulated solely by
examination— that is, judged by results. Exami
nations make or mar careers. They are the
supreme and sole test of capacity, efficiency, and
scholarship. In an interesting book lately pub
lished on education in general an expert, who
has devoted his life to the work, admits that
" the examination with its demand for machine-
made results controls education. ... In the
schools that prepare little boys for 'the Great
Public Schools ' the whole scheme of education
is dominated by the head masters' desire to win
as many entrance scholarships as possible. In
' the Great Public Schools ' the scheme of educa
tion is similarly dominated by the head masters'
desire to win as many scholarships as possible
at the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. In the
Universities all the undergraduates are without
exception reading for examinations of various
kinds." *
More accurately speaking, it is not the actual
examination but the necessity of passing examina
tions that is so pernicious. An examination by
the master of a class set for the purpose of ascer
taining if and how his pupils are assimilating
his instruction and how they or he are failing
would be a very different thing. But there would
be no "first," "second," "third," no "passed"
and " failed," and therefore it would in no way
* " What Is and What Might Be," E. Holmes.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 219
resemble what is at present known as the
examination test.
The preparation for these examinations has
become the avowed aim and object of education.
The absorption of classified and systematised
information is the approved method of prepara
tion. The amount of pure parrot knowledge
cannot be estimated, and next to the parrot
knowledge of names, formulas, and definitions the
unintelligent learning of scraps and bits — line 18
to line 32, but do not look at line 17, or inquire
what happens on line 33— this is just what is
wanted for examinations, and remarkably un
intelligent and unenlightened youths gain great
proficiency in this special method of learning.
It is not a way of whetting the intellectual
appetite ; on the contrary, it often permanently
nauseates it. A head master has declared that
" great men in spite of their affection for their
schools often look back to them as a time of
intellectual waste." * " Intellectual life is left to
take care of itself," f says another master. This
opinion is endorsed by an old Etonian recently
writing : " when I left ... I was quite unfitted
to earn my living in any walk of life : and I
know, as I have said, not a few others who must
and do admit the same." J
It would be outside the province of a general
critic who does not pretend to be a specialist to
* Dr. Welldon, Head Masters' Conference, 1890.
t A. C. Benson, The Schoolmaster.
X Edmund Bosanquet, Daily Mail, August 5, 1912.

220 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
expatiate on methods of tuition, the principles
of pedagogy, or subjects for instruction, to discuss
the advantages and disadvantages of a classical
or non-classical course, or to define what con
stitutes a good brain exercise and how far mental
gymnastics aid or hinder the acquisition of real
knowledge. But in considering the class with
which we are dealing, and knowing the oppor
tunities and social advantages which belong to
it, any one may be struck by the palpable
inadequacy of the Public School course of
training. It is the omissions that claim attention.
Brain exercise may be necessary up to a point,
but with it should be combined guidance to
certain avenues of knowledge with an endeavour
to stimulate a desire to pursue investigation along
those avenues farther. There is no time to teach
a boy everything. Indeed, he cannot be made
to learn all that it is important for him to know.
But as he is of an inquiring turn of mind, in addi
tion to actual set studies, lines of thought can be
suggested to him by means of the familiar facts
and phenomena that surround him. For instance,
how many Public School boys could tell the
average wage of an agricultural labourer in any
district, the price of sugar per pound, or the
difference between rates and taxes? It is true
that the examination test blocks the road, because
it iprevents the awakening of real interest and
spoils the thirst for knowledge. But there are
certain subjects which would seem in any circum
stances to be absolutely essential in training the

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 221
sons of a class who still have in their hands a
great deal of authority, and constitute to some
degree a governing class.
A Public School boy might be taught his own
language, and, in addition to that, something of
the following subjects : —
How his country is governed, and
the divisions and functions of the
governing authority and of subordinate
authorities.
The history of his country in recent years,
working backwards in detail after a
general survey, and not forwards from
William the Conqueror, always sticking
somewhere amongst the Georges.
The elements of political economy, so that
he may see the meaning of some of the
familiar facts which he comes across in
everyday life.
The elements of industrial history.
Some general comparison of the political,
social, and economic state of the chief
countries in the world.
One of the branches of natural science
pursued beyond the elementary stage.
These subjects must not be regarded as studies
reserved only for the more advanced scholars,
but as alternatives within the reach of all the
older boys. If preparation for citizenship is
accepted as one of the objects of a boy's educa
tion, some information with regard to our
national institutions and a broader conception

222 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
of his duties, obligations, and responsibilities
should be given to him. The object is not to
produce a well-informed prig, but an intelligent
citizen. There is another obstacle to satisfactory
instruction being given. "An entire absorption
in games to the exclusion of practically all other
interests cannot be called a healthy feature of
education." * Or, to put it in the words of a
master,! " So long as the tone of our Public
Schools both among teachers and taught exalts
play to the rank of a serious business, and thinks
it no dishonour to spend some years of valuable
time at great cost to parents in doing little else
but play, so long will they contribute to satis
faction with mere amateur efforts in business,
in diplomacy, or in war, which has so often
cost England dear."
It is not improbable that the other causes
already mentioned have contributed more to the
" mere amateur efforts " than the worship of
athletics. It must be remembered that if any
self-government is allowed to the boys — and it
certainly should be— they will naturally prefer to
idolise a good runner, a good bat, or a good
oar rather than a good scholar. Nor is there any
great harm in this. Owing to the dreary
character of their school work they very
naturally become absorbed in athletics as some
thing they can really enjoy. An old Wykehamist
* " Floreat Etona," Ralph Nevill.
t " Public Schools from Within," 1906.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 223
gives a very good idea of this sentiment. Speak
ing of a certain head master, he says he "liked
Attic Greek a great deal better than athletics of
any kind. We, or the majority of us, decidedly
did not ; and if Plato could have come down to
the river in the flesh we should have drowned
him to a certainty. We liked Homer and the
Greek plays, barring the Choruses, but bother that
Plato— he was a great ruffian who never ought to
have lived. I speak for the division who loved
cricket and football more than Plato." And of
the same master he adds : " He evidently made
boys thoroughly understand what he taught,
though I am afraid he often talked to those whose
minds were in the cricket field." *
There is something essentially healthy in
vigorous outdoor exercise, and no one would wish
to see our playing fields exchanged for the back
yard of the French lycee. It is the professional
element that has helped to spoil the amusement
and distraction which games should afford. The
publicity given outside the schools to athletic
pre-eminence is harmful. At quite an early age
the boys find their names in the Sportsman and
other newspapers. The unhealthy excitement of
public renown begins for them, and the sporting
Press becomes their main literary consumption.
Moreover, the richer boys, who are not preparing
for any profession and who regard education only
as a disagreeable necessity, have every oppor
tunity at home for perfecting themselves in
* Mr. Frederick Gale in " Great Public Schools."

224 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
games, and by this means become the leaders
and set the tone, which is very often one of
swagger and conceit. Boys ought of course to be
discouraged from loafing, because the habit of
desultory idleness is of all the most pernicious
and most likely to lead to evil consequences.
Games and sports help to fill up the large amount
of leisure they are to enjoy when they grow up.
But there are a number of ways, both pleasant
and instructive, in which boys could be occupied,
which would allow more freedom of choice to
those Who derive no benefit from being dragooned
into rigid athletic organisations. It is again a
case of greater attention being paid to individual
taste and inclination, and some means of escape
being provided from the enforced dead level of
hard-and-fast regulation. To say that cricket,
football, fives, and athletic sports are the only
possible occupations for a boy's leisure is to
display a complete ignorance of what boys like
and what boys should be taught. Those enter
prising schools which allow the boys in their
leisure opportunities for developing any hobby
for collecting, or taste for natural history,
gardening, engineering, building, riding, ex
ploring in addition to, not in substitution of,
the ordinary games are finding the system highly
advantageous, because they recognise the impor
tance of educating the muscles simultaneously,
with the mind.
The difficulty in this, as in much else, is
insurmountable so long as you have to deal with

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL

225

many hundreds of boys instead of a manageable
quantity. But the object of schools, more
especially the smaller ones, is to increase and
not to diminish their numbers.
The expense of athletic outfits, flannels, scarves,
stockings, caps of various colours, football boots,
cricket boots, fives shoes, &c., adds considerably
to the general cost. When all is told and the
many subjects counted as extras are included, not
much is left over out of £300 a year for the
keep, clothing, and education of a boy in one
of the larger Public Schools, and £200 a year
is a minimum in the smaller schools.* " It

* Fees for boys not on the foundation, exclusive of all
extras (" Public Schools Year Book ") : —

Eton

Winchester Harrow Rugby

Entrance fee
School fee
House fee
Private classical
tuition 
Entrance...
Tuition and board
Entrance 
Tuition ...
Board Entrance... Tuition ...
Board 

Marlborough Tuition and board
Charterhouse Tuition 
Board 15

;^2I O O
30 O O
115 10 O

21

0

0

127

00

0
0

£^0 60 90

0
0 0

000

£7 so
72

7
16 7

0
06

£31 84

10 0

0
0

;^l87 10 o
£i3g o o
£160 o o

£no 10
;^II0 O

^115 10 o

226 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
should be owned," says a prominent old Etonian,*
" that Eton is rather expensive. The school
charges are not indeed heavier, if so heavy, as
those of some other of the great Public Schools,
but there is an air of wealth and a large way of
looking at things absolutely inevitable in a place
whither so many congregate who, having taken
the trouble to be born, are relieved by circum
stances from the necessity of further labour. In
any community expenditure tends to follow the
lead of the wealthiest, and among average young
Englishmen it requires the glorious enterprise of
an imprudent marriage to induce an effective
economy." An Eton boy costs his parents more than
£300 a year. It is this prohibitive price
which prevents the sons of poorer men from
competing in these schools, unless a few come
in as scholars on the foundation. This fact alone
summarises the character of the British Public
School and makes it unique. Nevertheless, men
who can ill afford it scrape together all the money
they can in order to have the pride and glory
of sending their boys to a " Great Public School."
And they are often made to repent their parental
ambition when in later years their son is thrown
back on their hands incapable of earning his
own living. For it is openly admitted that it
is not the object of some of these institutions
to fit boys for professional work. Commenting
* The Right Hon. Alfred Lyttelton in "Great Public
Schools, y

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 227
on a reduction of numbers at Eton in recent
years, and assigning rather naively as a cause
of this the financial policy of the Liberal Govern
ment, a local newspaper remarked : " The con
sequence is that they [the parents] have to face
the prospects of their sons, instead of training
for a parliamentary or other career where an
ample private income is necessary, having to earn
their own living and are giving them a more
commercial education." * The prospects of the
sons of the aristocracy having to buckle to in
order to earn their own living is regarded, in fact,
as a calamity.
It may be noted in passing that Denmark has
evolved a system of boarding-schools which has
educated nine -tenths of the managers of her
eleven hundred co-operative dairies and one-third
of her members of Parliament at the inclusive
cost of nine shillings a week.f In no country in
the world is the cost as high as it is here.
A Public School boy is generally sorry to leave
his school. The life has many attractions, and
he is at an age when the worrying responsibility
of choice is naturally withheld from him. Cor
porate life is pleasant and even stimulating on
its competitive side, and boys may be found who
prefer it to home life. But this is common to
most schools, and these sentiments would be
accentuated rather than mitigated were the boy
able to look back on his Public School days in
* - Windsor Chronicle, February, 1912.
t J. S. Thornton, " Schools of Northern Europe."

228 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
after life and with gratitude acknowledge that
his training had been a help to him in his pro
fession and a comfort and resource to him in
his life. The benefits, unfortunately, are more
than counterbalanced by the drawbacks. The
good effects are ephemeral rather than lasting ;
the bad effects are legacies for a lifetime.
A boy who is a gentleman, in the moral sense
as well as in the social sense, is not going to
have that modicum of virtue extracted from him
at school or anywhere else. The boy who is a
gentleman in the moral sense, but has not the
requisite social status, does not go to one of the
" Great Public Schools " simply because he can
not afford it.
Now comes the boy who is not a gentleman in
the moral sense, but is a gentleman in the social
sense because he has money. As already pointed
out, he is sent to these establishments " to be
made into a gentleman." In after-life he can
boast of his school and the friends he made there,
but it is doubtful if very much benefit comes to
him from associating with other boys of greater
refinement. Many parents send their sons to
the best-known Public School with this object.
But a boy or man may associate with
gentlemen all his life without ever becoming
one, and it is really too much to ajsk that
special establishments should be kept going
to assist the ambitions of " climbers." Public
Schools cannot, any more than any other
power on earth, make boys gentlemen in the

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 229
moral sense. The training they, give, moral,
intellectual, and physical, may have suited idlers
of another age, but is insufficient for any man
who desires to take a part in modern life,
whether it be domestic, professional, municipal,
or national. The expensive and exclusive system
has broken down. And this fact is beginning
to present itself as a very critical problem. A
full endorsement of this view came recently from
the Head Master of Manchester Grammar
School,* who said : —
" It was one of the great disappointments of
English education that though our Public
Schools were models to the world of what cor
porate life should be, yet that corporate feeling
of the Public School boy had never translated
itself as it should have done into effective civic
action. For the most part, the Public School
boy had not that adequate sense of obligation
which the privileges of his education ought to
have begotten in him. He was narrow not only
in his knowledge, in his outlook, and in inunicipal
things, but he was jiarrow in his social life.
He was content to look on and criticise when it
ought to be the passion of his heart to be in the
middle of the fight helping and serving his
species. ... A system of education that had
produced men capable of callous isolation was
a system of education that stood condemned. It
was, unfortunately, only a too true description
of the great majority of boys attending Public
=^ Mr. J. L. Paton, M.A.

230 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
Schools that, having been born with silver spoons
in their mouths, and having formed and having
been trained to form expectations, they never
learned to do things for themselves."
Strangers are liable to be deceived by the out
ward attractions of our Public Schools. The
neatly dressed, manly, well-groomed boys stroll
ing beneath the towers and spires of ancient
buildings, or disporting themselves in gay cos
tumes in their beautiful playing-grounds present
an alluring picture ; and the strangers, more
especially when they come from across the
Atlantic, are ready to pronounce such establish
ments ideal. " That is what makes the English
gentleman what he is ! " they will exclaim. They
are right, and that is precisely the very essence
of our complaint.

CHAPTER X
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
Necessity of religion as a groundwork of education — Pre
ference for Established Church — The Catechism — The
children of wrath — The spirit of perfection — ^Attitude
of parents on religion — School routine — Scripture
history — Chapel — Lack of moral training — Avoidance
of real Christian teaching — Orthodox beliefs not real
religion — How boys are afEected.
If we accept the idea that education should not
be a preparation for examinations, mental gym
nastics, or the stuffing of young heads with scraps
of information, but the building up of character,
the discipline of instincts, and the guidance of
morals, the teaching of religion should act as
the principal basis and groundwork. Religion
is a better word to us,e than morality in
this connection, becauSiC, if relieved of all
the complications of ceremonial worship which
have little or nothing to do with real religion,
it implies an inspired form of expansive idealism,
while the word " morality " is apt to suggest a
codified set of precepts.
The Church has still, to a large degree, the
control and supervision of educational establish-

232 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
ments, and the head master is as a rule a clergy
man, or has been so till quite lately. This close
relation between learning and the devotional
function of the community is almost prehistoric.
The priests alone were able to give instruction
in the manners of approaching and propitiating
the divine or demoniac powers, and they alone
possessed the requisite knowledge of " super
natural etiquette." They have never lost this
hold, and an immense amount of ritual and cere
monial is engrained in our older Public Schools
and Universities, as they all started as definitely
religious establishments.
But to what end is the religious control utilised
in British Public Schools? Is it to formalism
and the superficial knowledge of dogmas and the
mechanical performance of certain rites? or is
it to ethical and moral guidance? Is the spiritual
life something to be cultivated quite separately?
or is it the essence which lies at the back of
every thought and action of every human being?
These are the really important questions.
Any man who has been a Public School boy
can look back and estimate the worth, or rather
the utter worthlessness, of most of what was com
prised under the head of divinity and religion
in his years at school. Of course he is a church
man. As a cler^man once remarked, " all the
best people are." It is the only denomination
favoured by the upper classes, with the exception
of Roman Catholicism, which is traditional in
some families. All the other sects of Noncon-

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 233
formity are for the middle and lower classes.*
The Public School boy knows little or nothing
about them, but he soon understands that the
attitude of the Church towards them corresponds
precisely to his own attitude towards the lower
classes— that is to say, it is one of kindly and
contemptuous patronage founded on ignorance.
The Church is a nationally established institu
tion with bishops and cathedrals. There is some
thing expensive and ancient about it, so, as an
institution, it must be the best.
The boy comes to school with vague and
childish notions of theology and a parrot-like
knowledge of the Catechism. The petulant inter
ruptions of the questioner inspire him with a
feeling almost of terror that his repetition of
it will not run off the reel quite smoothly.
" What did your godfathers and godmothers
then for you? " He takes a long breath.
"... first that I should renounce the deviland-
allhisworks, the pompsandvanity of this wicked
world, and allthesinfulustsofthflesh." The
nursery-maid may have frightened him with
descriptions of the devil, but he is not yet aware
that the world is very wicked. And then to
think that we make our children at the age of
* " Even Dissenters have feelings of a sort. Although
most of them were born in back streets — that is not their
fault. They would have chosen otherwise if they could.
Although every one knows that Dissent is the religion of the
cad, it is the worst possible ofiEence against good taste to say
so " (iS'^. Matthew's Parish Magazine [Southsea], February,
1911).

234 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
eight talk about the " lusts of the flesh," taking
great care never to explain to them at the age
of sixteen, when the lusts begin to attack them,
what they are and what they mean.
So he goes on repeating the subtle theological
intricacies in the Creed and the Ten Command
ments. The last paragraphs he generally finds
very sticky, because they are to him entirely
incomprehensible, in spite of all explanations.
" What is the inward and spiritual grace? "
" A death unto sin and a new birth unto
righteousness : for being by nature born in sin
and the children of wrath we are hereby made
the children of grace."
This clause of the Catechism exposes the key
note of a great deal that is wrong in the general
conception of children's education. There need
be no irreverence in questioning the infallibility
of the doctrines propounded in the Catechism,
a form of instruction drawn up and revised
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by
various Anglican ecclesiastics. A thoughtful dis
belief in a certain hard and uncompromising
dogma can be every bit as reverent as a thought
less belief in it. In the ecclesiastical world, how
ever, credit is only given to credulity.
The orthodox belief is that a child is born
tainted with evil instincts and inclined to sin,
and it is the duty of pastors and masters to
correct his nature and remove the taint by a
series of religious observances. The process
must be one of vigilant repression of evil and

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 235
inoculation of good. This, indeed, is the under
lying principle throughout.
If this antiquated and entirely false supersti
tion were abandoned tliere might be some
chance of undermining the whole system, with
its deadening and cramping effects. It is far
more probable that every child born into the
world contains within it a spirit of perfection,
and retains that spirit untainted till the body dies.
The spirit of perfection emanating from an
unseen controlling power, and inseparably con
nected with it, has infinite capabilities, which
it is only prevented from exercising and exhibit
ing by material imperfections and disadvantages
due partly to physical causes, partly to heredity,
and partly to environment. There can be no
such thing as a spirit of evil. Evil is the result
of the physical deficiencies of human nature as
it is at present constituted. The good alone is
inspired. The evil is the obstacle which inter
feres, often very seriously, with the free expres
sion of the good. With such a belief the process
of education would mean preventing at this early
age the formation of any impenetrable crust of
evil physical habits which might become instincts,
in order to allow the free expression from within
of the essential good. No operation of inocula
tion is needed, because the good is there in its
most sublime form, waiting to find an outlet.
The younger the child the less formed are the
many physical disabilities that darken the light
that is trying to shine through, and the better

236 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
chance there is of mitigating their intensity.
These physical deficiencies, which may sometimes
be very strong, cannot be entirely removed. But
a careful moral training, based not on inexplic
able dogmas, but on rational teaching, will prove
to be the most valuable factor in correcting
natural defects, and thereby assisting the develop
ment from within which is being hindered in
its progress. It is said of Dr. Arnold, whose
method, unfortunately, is too seldom copied, that
as in intellectual so in moral matters it was to
promise rather than to attainment that he looked,
and it was by stimulating the good rather than
by repression of evil that he acted.
Rich parents generally leave the religious
education of their children, with all the rest, to
tutors and governesses. They are most of them
hampered themselves by doubts with regard to
dogmatic Christianity, but if they think about it
at all they dare not take up any uncompromising
or decided attitude one way or the other, and in
a half-hearted way they submit to the recognised
official form of religious teaching. Creeds,
collects, Catechism, and Commandments are
taught as religion ; " You mustn't do this " and
" Don't do that " as morals ; and charity is under
stood not as service and sacrifice, but as giving
money to missions and contributing to the
offertory. At a Public School daily chapel, two services
on Sundays, Greek Testament, and Bible ques
tions or Scripture-teaching are the doors

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 237
through which the teachers are supposed to
reach the inner spiritual nature of the hundreds
of boys who pass through their hands. Greek
Testament means construing in a large class a
chapter of the Gospels, which has been run
through with the Bible the evening before.
Explanations are given of the text, but they are
more often about the Greek than about the
Testament. Bible questions are a series of
conundrums set with a view to occupying a
couple of hours of a boy's time on Sunday.
Sometimes they are exceedingly ingenious, and
necessitate a good deal of research in Bible dic
tionaries and concordances. They seldom take
the form of essays, or compositions requiring
thought and imagination. They are generally
bald questions as to events, names, phrases, geo
graphical and topographical details, the meaning
of expressions, and the comparison of passages
in Old Testament history. Boys may be found
on a Sunday afternoon studying a commentary
on Timothy or some voluminous concordance.
Knowledge of Scripture history is looked upon
with high favour. Special prizes are given for
it, and the general impression prevails that a
boy is morally strengthened in proportion to his
aptitude for divinity. God hovers behind some
where, a frightening, warlike figure, full of ven
geance and fury, but apparently the same God
who is prayed to in chapel as " the author of
peace and lover of concord." In such a scheme
as this the real beauties, the poetry, the transcen-

238 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
dental thought of the Bible cannot be explained
or appreciated.
Morning chapel consists of part of the morning
service, a psalm, a hymn (if popular, well
shouted), and the lesson. It is all quite
mechanical, and does not arrest the attention of
the boy for an instant unless he is peculiarly
devout. The Sunday service is a full-dress affair,
an opportunity for displaying " Sunday bags."
The sartorial side of Sunday service in the
Church of England would seem almost to be a
fortieth article of religion. Do people dress up
out of respect for the Deity or because when
they are in their Sunday best their minds are
more spiritually inclined? Of the many depress
ing effects of any sort of British religious service
the rustle of silk, the nodding of plumes, the
well -creased folds, the general aroma of pomatum
and camphor, is perhaps the most desolating of
all. But schoolboys rather enjoy watching one
another and visitors' and masters' wives coming
in, and they criticise the peculiarities of costume.
There is a sermon which might afford a good
opportunity of instilling some sort of reality into
the proceedings, but it is an opportunity not
often made use of. Anything sentimental or
emotional should be scrupulously avoided, but a
short discourse of the simple, telling sort can
make boys think in such a way that they, will
begin to examine the meaning and purpose of
life. Attached to the older foundations there
are a number of elderly divines, who cannot be

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 239
expected to perform this office and whose eccen
tricities remain indelibly engraved on the minds
of their youthful congregation. From start to
finish the whole tone and manner of these
services are hopelessly perfunctory. There is
no tendency to irreverence among the boys, but
their reverence is senselessly conventional. They
may be correctly orthodox, or, some may be
boldly unorthodox ; but it is a question of
fashion, not of thought. If daily prayers are
read in the boarding-houses it is a mere matter of
routine. Forms are gabbled through, which by
constant repetition have become quite meaning
less. This, then, is practically and officially the
sum total of school " religious " education.
Does the result of such a lack of moral training
show itself in the boys' characters? Decidedly
it does. They are not immoral. That is far
too hard a word to apply to boys between the
ages of twelve and eighteen, and a word that is
used too often and too lightly. It denotes a
serious defect in character, of which of course
there are always a few instances. But as a whole
they are distinctly " unmoral," which is the in
evitable outcome of such treatment. Home
influence, as already suggested, could correct this,
but if ever small sparks of moral self-conscious -
ness are kindled at home, at school they are
almost extinguished, and, anyhow, never fanned
into flames. Many boys brought up in this way,
show to their life's end a strong disinclination
to penetrate below the surface, an intolerance

240 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
for the abstract aspect of problems, and an
engrained preference for worldly wisdom.
It is very difficult for a boy to grasp that there
is the smallest connection between all this cere
monial religion, the historical, geographical, and
Greek teaching, which he does not believe really
matters, and his conduct, duty, and life, which
are still only very hazily apprehended. When
he is scolded and punished for his mis
demeanours it is, as a general rule, on the prin
ciple of the repression of evil, not of liberation
of good. He is told what he ought not to do,
but it is seldom suggested to him what he ought to
do. Rarely does he receive any word in all his
schooldays, at the most susceptible time of his
existence, about the significance of life, the know
ledge of humanity, the true meaning of morality,
the world he lives in, his duty to his fellows, and
his own sense of responsibility. No setting up
of an ideal, no suggestions for moral training,
no guidance for conduct, no aim for growing
hopes and aspirations, nothing but Jehoiachin,
Dearly beloved brethren, and 6 Xoyoc.
Every teacher, of course, cannot be expected
to deal with these subjects successfully. Boys
are suspicious of any one who is inclined to
preach, or addicted to the " pi-jaw," and they
are ashamed of any display of emotion. Also it
is difficult in schools that are essentially anti
democratic and diligently foster class prejudice
to explain fully the precepts of Christ, which
are ultra-democratic— in fact, socialistic. A good

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 241
deal of garbling and slurring over of awkward
points has to be done. The Christian religion
has only been accepted by the rich because the
divinity of Christ has been taught as an essential
feature of it. Were it not for this supernatural
element, the eternal truths uttered by a village
carpenter would certainly not have found any
favour. But the supernatural is capable of almost
any explanation, and can be comfortably adapted
to almost any point of view. The precepts are
regarded not as a tangible and attainable ideal,
but as a transcendental counsel of perfection
veiled over in mysticism.
" If the Public Schools were to make an
attempt to Christianise the rising generation,
would the parents stand it? " asks an enlightened
Public School master." * "I think not. The
average parent understands by religious teaching
something which will provide a sanction for the
commercial spirit and the existing social order.
In a vague way he wishes his boy to realise that
wealth is blessed and poverty slightly discredit
able, , and that the British Empire is a sounder
and more practical ideal than the Kingdom of
Heaven. If his boy must be righteous it is
desirable that his righteousness should not exceed
that of the Scribes and the Pharisees ; whatso
ever is more than this comes of Socialism or
some other evil thing. No doubt the Bible is
a most unpromising book on which to build up
a sound commercial education ; but many
* Letter to The Nation, January 14, 1911.
16

242 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
generations of business men have learned to
regard it as a talisman ; so the boy must grow
up with it but not of it."
If only Bible teaching could be made intelligent
and discriminating, it would have its use as a
foundation for religious teaching. Most boys can
be reached by a simple, rational, and direct
appeal. They are all beginning to grope in the
great spreading darkness, and they are only too
grateful for a friendly hand with a lantern. But
instead of any lead or guidance, the idea is to
turn out boys like those described in the Rev.
C. L. Marson's admirable pamphlet: "They can
tell you who Huppim and Muppim and Ard were ;
they know the latitude of Beersheba, Kerioth,
and Bethgamul ; they can tell you who slew a
lion in a pit in a snowy day ; they have ripe
views upon the identity of N^thanael and St.
Bartholomew ; they can name the destructive
miracles, the parables peculiar to St. Luke, and,
above all, they have a masterly knowledge of
St. Paul's second missionary journey. They are
loaded and ballasted with chronicles of Baasha
and Zimri, Methuselah and Alexander the
Coppersmith. . . . Take any of these ' reli
giously educated ' children and ask them what
one must do to make life nobler and less sordid.
They simply look puzzled."
No amount of theology, divinity, or dogma by
itself can be made use of as a substitute for the
teaching of religion. The observance of strictly.
orthodox practices and the ready acceptance of

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 243
all orthodox beliefs are no signs of a religious
disposition ; on tlie contrary, they very fre
quently go with a mechanical, unsensitive mind,
whose reverence is a matter of routine and whose
inspiration is nothing more than punctilious con
vention. There is very little connection between
piety and moral rectitude.
It is good for foals to be turned out loose in
a paddock, but there must be fences to the
paddock to prevent them from straying into mire
and bog. Morally speaking, there are no fences
whatever (except school regulations, which no
one is despised for disregarding). Many conse
quently wander very far afield. But, theologic
ally speaking, they are tied up in stalls with their
noses forced into a manger filled with stodgy,
indigestible food. And yet the only complaint
made by the head masters is that there is
a deplorable falling off in Scripture teaching,
specially in the smaller Public Schools. These
are probably the very schools which are
endeavouring to institute some real system
of moral discipline and adequate religious
training. Such, however, is the force and purity of the
foundation of good, which springs up in human
nature, that in spite of this neglect most boys
develop from their innermost consciousness un
aided a fairly sensitive moral perception, and
welcome it in others. Were they indeed born as
" children of wrath," the religion that is taught
them at a Public School would leave them in a

244 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
deplorable condition of positive depravity. So
frail and unstable, indeed, is the structure of
dogmatic teaching presented to them, and so little
connection has it with the deep foundations of
true morality, that it soon crumbles in after-life.
And then, with no intellectual resources, no
enthusiasm for the wonders of nature, and no
appreciation of the great achievements of
humanity, they drift into apathy, indifference,
and a cold, cynical contempt for the vital
supports in the guidance of their life. Without
being fully aware of it they are left stranded, and
the weapons that might stand them in good
stead in the difficult task of utilising to the full
their exceptional opportunities are blunted and
rendered useless.

CHAPTER XI
A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
Private school — General result from Public School training
— Latin — Greek — English literature — Mathematics
— Modern languages — History — Number of teachers —
Rigidity of system — Games — Fagging — Manners —
Wasted opportunities — Boy hardly to blame.
In order to illustrate the argument more fully,
the first-hand experience may be given of one
wh» spent five years at a Public School towards
the end of the nineteenth century.
" It would be incorrect to say that I learned
nothing whatever at a Public School. A boy
from thirteen to eighteen learns a great deal
wherever he is. He is learning all the time.
But the question is, What do I remember of what
I was deliberately taught, and what use was
the learning I received to me later? Something
must have stuck for a time because there were
examinations to be passed. But I take it that
education means something more than this, and
I am trying to think whether any taste for any
particular subject was cultivated in me, and I
cannot honestly say that it was.
" I distinctly recollect the day I arrived at my
<24S

246 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
private school. I was taken to the classroom,
and my very first task was to translate a bit of
Greek prose. I was only just eleven, and I am
amazed at myself when I think now that I was
capable of even attempting it, but I am more
amazed still when I consider the idiotic system
which allowed such a thing to be possible.
However, at this preparatory school I believe
I did master some elementary knowledge, and
I am not conscious of having been perpetually
harried by examinations. But I have no pleasant
recollections of the musty, dismal school -house,
which is always vividly recalled to my memory
by the smell of scrubbed boards. Be it said
that a number of the boys were peers' sons, a
fact the head master never omitted to mention
to parents, of course in a casual parenthesis.
As a result of good grounding in the required
subjects, I made a pretty fair start at my Public
School. But somehow after that I went through
the full five years' course with only moderate
success, absorbing the requisite amount of
information to lift me along from class to class,
with diminishing rather than increasing zeal. I
was an average type, never distinguishing myself
in any branch of learning, failing occasionally
but not too frequently ; generally about the
middle of my class, lazy rather than stupid,
careless rather than disobedient, slow and in
attentive, but not uninterested. My studies repre
sent themselves to me now, some years after,
as colourless, monotonous, and mechanical grind.

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE 247
No one subject stands out in my memory as
something that roused excessive liking, or as
something I was tempted to pursue in after years.
" Latin conveys to me early lessons in grammar
and syntax, and the increasing difficulty and toil
of Latin prose, which was always a puzzle of
translation, but never became for me an interest
ing work of style and construction, and Latin
verses, which were a perfect curse. The prose
one could finish even badly, but the verses were
an extra complicated sort of acrostic which some
times would not come out. To me they were
not remotely connected with poetry, and some
boys who had a facility for them were by no
means poetical. I used occasionally to give a
couple of lines apiece to some of my good-
natured and cleverer friends, and collect them
at night and write them out together into one
sublime poem. Caesar in the earlier days was
dreadfully dull, but easy, as there were many
words one recognised at once. Of Ovid I can
remember nothing, except the appearance of the
book of extracts. Cicero was more difficult and
I thought still duller. I wondered how he could
have made such portentously long speeches. But
I had no idea why he made them, or when he
lived or anything about him. -But that was the
same with all the authors. I rather liked Horace,
because he was sometimes amusing. I was
puzzled at the immense amount of explanatory
English that seemed to be required to translate
one of his short lines. I can recollect an adven-

248 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
ture I had with the Ars Poetica. In preparing
for an examination on leaving school I was not
told that it was one of the obligatory subjects,
and I only found out the mistake two days before
the examination began. I rushed to a coach,
spent most of the two days with him while he
construed the Ars Poetica to me over and over
again. His fee of £l an hour was equal to
fourpence a minute, and this fact got hold of
my imagination and very much interfered with
my powers of attention. As he slowly translated
in a dull, monotonous voice, I seemed to hear
the clink of the pennies falling on the table, and
tried to calculate how much it came to per line.
I failed in the examination, but that was not
only on account of an imperfect knowledge of
the Ars Poetica. My last term at school I was
having far too good a time with games and
amusements and gossip to bother very much
about work. Besides, I had not yet the smallest
notion of how to set about my work, even when
I had the time. This want of method, which
may have been a natural defect, I really think
might quite well have been corrected.
" But to return to Latin, Virgil was difficult,
and there seemed to be such a lot of it. Now
and again a passage struck me as — I won't say
beautiful, because I certainly recognised no
beauty, but ingenious and interesting. But like
so much else it appeared to be right away in
the distance out of reach. I seemed to know
that never would I read it with ease, and, there-

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE 249
fore, never with real enjoyment. Besides, I was
always thinking of the bit with all the traps
that would probably be asked in the examination.
I do not remember anything about Livy and
Tacitus except their names, and there were other
Latin authors whose names even I cannot recall.
" Greek I frankly hated. The grammar was
torture ; the idea of a Greek paradigm to this
day reminds me of pain which was almost
physical, and I do not believe that I should ever
have mastered the uses of yt and av. I may say
that I had never learned English grammar, so
for long I thought it was a peculiar characteristic
of the Latin and Greek languages, which was
enough to make them odious in anybody's eyes.
There were extracts from Xenophon's Anabasis,
which I thought inexpressibly dreary. Finger
marked and loosened pages of my Herodotus I
can still see in my mind's eye, because they
betrayed signs of struggle and conflict ; they were
disfigured with notes, scribblings, smudgings, and
underlinings. How I detested it ! Then tit-bits
of Homer. I was on the look-out for incidents
about which I had read at home in ' Stories
from Homer ' (not a school book), but I think
I might have liked it better if the whole scheme
had been more fully explained to me, and if it
had not been that for a particular examination
I was obliged to learn up two books of the
Odyssey in a very short space of time, making
a special study of catch passages 'which you
are sure to be asked.' My Thucydides was bound

250 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
in scarlet, but I should be sorry to have to answer
any other questions about that great author. I
recollect learning some lines of Theocritus by
heart. I remember them now ; the jingle of
them will never leave me. I don't know what
they mean, and I didn't know then ; nor did
I know what the whole poem was about, who
Theocritus was, or when he lived. Perhaps the
most prickly bit of Greek I tried to grapple with
was part of an oration of Demosthenes, which
occupied us one whole term. It was hideously
difficult, far too difficult for me to take the very
smallest interest in it. It was full of legal
technicalities, and the one word I can remember
that always seemed to recur was ' demurrage.'
I had not the vaguest notion what it was all
about. I was eighteen at the time, so 1 suppose
I ought to have understood all about ' demur
rage,' and have enjoyed ' demurrage.' But, after
all, I think most sensible men would agree that
it was hardly a subject to make a boy of eighteen
hurry to his books. A page or two of some
Greek plays and a very occasional reference to
Greek history were also made singularly dry
under different masters.
" Not long ago I was reading Gilbert Murray's
translations and his prefaces to the plays. I
thought them deeply interesting and wonderfully
beautiful. A few familiar names as I read filled
me with a sort of nausea, as I remembered my
Greek lessons at school, the construing and
preparation, and translation and parsing. I

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE 251
know a boy at school now who is reading
these translations with great appreciation. He
is being shown the idea, the thought, the
plan, the origin, and taught something of the
author first, and the Greek, which he is not
likely to master perfectly, is secondary.
' Selected passages ' from the classics were
presented to me as a means of learning
Greek. Incidentally, through the medium of a
very elementary knowledge of the language I was
supposed to be able to recognise the beauties
and appreciate the significance of what I read.
Surely this was the wrong way round. 1 must
explain that my boy friend is not at one of the
recognised, best, large, ' great ' Public Schools,
so perhaps he does not count.
" Whether the object was to teach us the Greek
language or to give us a good brain exercise I
do not know. Many of the masters, I think,
must have despaired of the first, and therefore
consoled themselves that they were doing the
second. There were paradigm papers on which
we wrote out the various parts of Greek verbs.
The paper was shiny, and by blotting easily
helped to screen my frequent ignorance of
accents and breathings. The perpetual parsing
of words worried us a good deal and interrupted
our attempts at following the sense when we
were construing. A master once, during a lesson
in Homer, had perpetually stopped boys and
made them parse the words. It was a passage
in which a hero shot an arrow from his bow

252 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
at some enemy. ' Nor did he miss him,' explained
the master. ' Nordidhemissim,' repeated the boy,
and then, without a moment's pause added, ' first
person singular, first aorist indicative, active,
from vopBiBrifiiZw.'
" It may be said you cannot teach Greek
without grounding boys in the difficulties of the
grammar. I can only say that I did not learn
Greek by those means, but then it may have been
my laziness and stupidity, and perhaps I should
not have learned it in any case. I think, as a
matter of fact, the study was much too difficult
for a young boy, and the result was that
many more got a lifelong hatred of Greek litera
ture than received benefit from it or appre
ciation of it. The boys who distinguished
themselves in classics were a small minority.
Even had we been more intelligently impressed
with the interest and the beauties of classical
authors, the language would always have been
an obstacle. History, elementary science, and
the elements of political economy (the very name
of which was unknown to me at school) are,
in my opinion, subjects which the mind of the
younger boys can grasp more easily, and at the
same time are studies which would be of lasting
use to them.
" I came across a pile of my old school-books
some time ago, and it is impossible to say with
what loathing I regarded their dun-coloured
covers, closely printed, finger-marked, torn,
pencilled, inked pages, with occasional leaves

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE 253
specially dirtied showing where the ' bit ' was
that had to be done. However, in all this Latin
and Greek, I managed to get through, because
in a class of twenty-five or thirty boys it was
only necessary to note the master's method and
a pretty shrewd guess could be made of vVhen
one's turn to construe would come. If I were
' put on ' one day, I could measure the chances
and know when I could safely shirk preparing
the lesson at all. For many of the books, too,
there was a handy crib which was passed round
and which helped to destroy the little good which
might have been derived from careful preparation
with dictionary or lexicon.
" We were not taught English, so I need not
dwell on that. English literature for some reason
was ignored, except Milton, from which we wrote
our punishment lines, and which I consequently
learnt to detest. I was once given eight hundred
lines for missing Sunday chapel as I had gone
out to breakfast with a friend some way off.
But a thousand lines was a common punishment.
' Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit ' only
conveys to hundreds of men to-day the desolating
and cramping toil of punishment lines. Mathe
matics I had a taste for at first. Whether I was
too slow or dense I do not know, but anyhow I
soon found the lesson had got beyond me, and
it became an effort and a drudgery. I took a
genuine interest in elementary science and
showed some aptitude for it. But, for some
reason I cannot now remember, after a term

254 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
or two it suddenly left off and I never continued
my studies in that direction at all. We had
lessons in modern languages, but the little I know
of them now was not learned at school. No
Public School boy of my time who had not
been abroad could speak decent French. There
were special extra half-hours in which we read
French and German plays and books. I liked
this, having some small aptitude for foreign
languages. But unfortunately they had to be
fitted in between dinner and the first afternoon
school, and as dinner was preceded by an hour's
violent exercise at football, fives, or some other
game, the physical effort of preventing eyes
closing, head nodding, and even book dropping
seriously impaired my powers of concentration.
" English History consisted in reading out
passages and answering set questions in writing.
It was rather confusing and bewildering. There
seemed to be no form or order. It was like
beads without a string. I got stuck at one time
in the Wars of the Roses, and at another time
in the Peace of Utrecht. The ' Age of Anne '
was a book that haunted me for a long time.
There seemed to be certain cut-and-dried periods
which were marked off for different forms in
the school, and you had to be pretty high up
to reach the Georges. I have often wondered
since why to know about William the Conqueror
should be elementary, and to know about
George III. should be advanced ; the contrary
idea would be far more rational. But History

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE 255
occupied very little time because it was not
wanted for the University examinations. To
pass the remarkable examinations called ' respon-
sions ' no knowledge of English History is
required. Geography we were not taught, or
rather when I come to think of it we occasion
ally filled names in blank maps, but I learned
geography afterwards. I cannot help thinking
that geography is a very suitable subject to teach
even the youngest boys. Drawing I always
enjoyed, and when it took the form of sketching
in the playing-fields instead of going in to morn
ing chapel I became enthusiastic. As for music,
1 could play the violin when I first went to
school, but it was made too difficult for me to
keep up. The lesson was in play hours, so I
dropped it entirely and ended by singing third-
rate ballads such as ' Two little friendless
children ' and ' White wings they never grow
weary.' The choral society, however, was well
managed and well attended.
"I remember on one occasion distinguishing
myself in a holiday task which was a play of
Shakespeare's. The reason was that I did it at
my own time, in my own way, and more especi
ally because I enjoyed it. Even at the time
it occurred to me that it was strange I could
not enjoy other sorts of study, for occasionally
I did catch glimpses of something that attracted
me. But it was quickly obscured by a haze of
technicalities, grammatical obscurities, and the
disturbing spirit of rivalry and competition.

256 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
which was so much encouraged. On going into
another form I frequently found I was expected
to know something I had never been taught. If
1 had been a dead failure I should blame my
self alone, though I might plead that special in
adaptability ought to have been met by special
methods of tuition. But I was not a failure,
but a fair average Public School product. To
the end I scraped through all the necessary
examinations. One thing is certain, through it
all my imagination and critical faculty were
allowed to remain absolutely fallow.
" During the five years I was at a Public School
I passed through the hands of thirty -three
masters. I am not straining the point so as to
include masters to whom I may have gone on
some isolated occasion for one lesson. These
thirty-three were class masters, or masters to
whom I Went for private tuition : fourteen taught
classics, seven mathematics, three science, five
modern languages, three music, and one drawing.
Perhaps I taay be allowed in parenthesis to make
further confessions with regard to the number
of individuals who endeavoured and were paid
to instruct me.

At home 

.. 14

Private school ...

.. 9

Public School ...

.. 33

University

.. 18

Abroad 

.. 9

Crammers 

.. 8

Total 

.. 91

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE 257
" Either I was phenomenally dense or else I
cannot help thinking there was a waste of energy
and effort somewhere. But every Public School
boy could, if he taxed his memory, give a similar
list, some probably longer.
" Out of the thirty -three Public School masters
I only got to know one at all intimately. I was
singularly fortunate, as he was a man of great
distinction of mind and character. The advan
tage I gained from this was indirect and due
to his personality, rather than his powers of
tuition, and it was not till afterwards that I
realised what I had lost by not knowing him
better. We regarded masters as beings who were
there to instruct us and to inflict on us this
particular form of disagreeable discipline, but
not as men whose profession we admired, or
whom we desired in any way to imitate. Their
profession, indeed, we most of us considered
rather low down in the social scale of profes
sions. The relations between masters and boys
is too delicate a matter to discuss profitably
without long experience. But there can be no
question that anything like a beneficial influ
ence cannot be exercised by a man who has
to deal with a large horde of boys. It is almost
beyond human power to supervise and guide with
discrimination so large a variety of personalities.
" On reflection it appears to me that the
principal drawback in the system lay in the fact
that, like indifferent doctors who diagnose a
disease according to set medical formulae and
17

258 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
treat it without regard for character and tem
perament, we were diagnosed solely on the
amount of information we had absorbed, which
was tested by examination, and little regard was
paid to taste, to predilections, or peculiarities
of disposition. We were all treated alike. The
system was rigid, we were pliant and were made
to adapt ourselves to it. In addition to this, I
really believe that the continuous gorging of
my mental digestion with dry, ill-assorted, and
artificially prepared information and instruction
without any thought being taken of whether
it was assimilated or not, produced in me an
intellectual nausea from which I have never
recovered, and seriously impaired my acquisi
tiveness and appetite for learning. Freshness
and zeal could not survive after five years of
such treatment.
" The credit of the school was placed too high
above the interests of the individual boys. As
in scholarship more interest and trouble was
devoted to boys who showed proficiency, so also
in the games the boys who exhibited signs of
excelling received careful attention and coach
ing, and the rest were left to take care of them
selves. The gaining of prizes and University
distinctions redounded to the credit of the
institution, and so also did a good eleven or
whatever number of boys it might be who repre
sented the school in games. Although I did not
excel in games myself, I did not resent the com
pulsion. Which is often objected to. We were

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE 259
certainly more interested in games than in any
thing else. We talked incessantly about them,
and our heroes were invariably boys who were
distinguished as athletes. School -work was very
frequently sacrificed to games. In fact, the whole
school was for us divided, classified, and clothed
according to the proficiency of boys in games.
A coloured cap was worth ten times, more than
any prize. As our book-work was so absolutely
unattractive, it was not surprising that we turned
most of our attention to an occupation which
really interested and amused us.
" I must not forget that I learned how to cook
buttered eggs, I could make excellent toast, and
I could lay a fire, an accomplishment I have
found exceedingly useful ever since. When I
find I know how to correct a housemaid in this
art, it has struck me how useful it would have
been had I been in the same position with regard
to carpentering, plumbing, gardening, or build
ing. Indeed, I thought fagging unobjectionable,
though I believe it would have been better if
the period of being fagged had been prolonged
so that no boy could escape a couple of years
of it. To have fags may perhaps have made
some boys domineering and autocratic, but it
taught the exercise of personal responsibility and
the control of others.
" As for manners, it is quite a mistake to
suppose they can be taught at school. It is at
home alone that the instinct of good manners
can be engrained. Manner can be taught, and

260 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
those who send their sons to school with a view
to making them gentlemen can perhaps derive
some satisfaction from a superficial imitation of
certain habits and mannerisms. They can learn
to assume the easy assurance and savoir-faire,
which not only act as a useful screen to prevent
the exposure of ignorance, but even suggest a
concealed profundity of knowledge. A boy who
obeyed the conventions, scholastic, athletic, and
social, had a pleasant enough time. I showed
no originality, and was quite ready to conform.
It is only the original boy who refuses to submit
to the prevailing customs who suffers. I remem
ber some whom I thought ' scugs ' because they
never would fit in with our boyish notions of
what was correct. No doubt they suffered. But
we thought it right that they should, and they did
not receive much encouragement either from the
masters. " I must confess I greatly enjoyed the five years
I spent at a Public School and was miserable
when I left. The social life, the common
interests, the making of friends, the old tradi
tions, and most of all the spirit of the place, all
made it exceedingly attractive. The boy mind
hates change and disturbing mental stimulants.
It revels in routine. A conventional boy between
the ages of twelve and eighteen, if he is in
pleasant surroundings, well fed, and associating
with agreeable companions, is bound to be happy.
One ought hardly to commend a school on this
account. To say that a Public School is an

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE 261
excellent institution because the boys are happy
is the same sort of praise as declaring that a
man is an admirable man because he is fond of
his children. A great deal more is wanted, and
I cannot admit that my happiness would have
been interfered with if I had learned something,
or been fired with some desire to learn anything.
1 was not ' hooky,' but 1 was quite fond of read
ing, and it is impossible to believe that some of
the subjects might not have been made far more
appetising. 1 must confess, too, that had I been
an orphan dependent solely on the knowledge,
notions, and ideas I received at school it would
have been a very bad look-out for me.
" I am quite willing to blame myself and other
boys like me, and I am conscious of many oppor
tunities that were wasted, but I cannot honestly
feel that much blame ought to be cast on a boy
of twelve, or even a boy of eighteen. The pro
portion of those who are hopelessly intractable,
persistently obstinate, constitutionally inept, or
impervious to any sort of influence is extremely
small. But I believe the proportion of those
whose individuality is deadened, whose peculiar
talents are neglected, and whose special aptitudes
are never discerned is very large indeed. There
is in the world, we all know, a gigantic waste of
human capacity. This wastage begins at school,
and I believe it is a far more serious matter than
most people suppose."

CHAPTER XII
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS COMMISSION
Commission reported in 1864 — Point of view of the Com
missioners — Schools originally founded for the education
of the poor — Evidence before the Commission — Increase
in number at schools since 1861 — No real change in
system — The study of classics — Grammar — Specialisa
tion — Reluctance of school authorities to adopt reforms
— The position of a critic.
There has been no investigation into our Public
Schools since 1861. The Royal Commission that
was appointed in that year and reported in 1864
was chiefly concerned with endowments, funds,
revenues, administration, and management. At
the same time it made a survey of studies, tuition,
and expenses. But the report of a commission
depends very much on the spirit in which the
commissioners enter upon their task and the
degree in which they can exercise sufficient
authority to effect changes and reforms. It is
often supposed that, a commission having re
ported, public opinion has been satisfied and
there is no need for further action, and when
there is no question of legislation the most that
can be expected is that the exposure of abuses
may lead to reforms. There was a Public

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS COMMISSION 263
Schools Act of 1868, but this dealt purely with
questions of administration and endowments,
which were important in some cases, as, for
instance, at Harrow, where the best educational
developments are said to date from that time.
But if any action was taken with a view to making
systematic educational changes, it was in most
other cases the minimum, which was just sufficient
not to show complete disregard of the findings
of the Commission, but insufficient to alter
materially a system that has grown up for
centuries undisturbed. Moreover, the Commis
sioners were not prepared to question the very
existence of Public Schools, or to find any fault
with this method of exclusive education for
gentlemen. They were merely, intent on im
proving the management and the course of
training in institutions which they had no doubt
might be made to serve their purpose effectively
if they were kept up to the mark.
The Commissioners described them as " schools
for boys whose parents are in sufficiently easy
circumstances to afford them a gentleman's edu
cation," and " that class of school to which most
Englishmen of the higher class either send their
sons or wish to send them." " These schools,"
they admitted, " have been the chief nurseries
of our statesmen : in them and in schools
modelled after them men of all the various classes
that make up English society, destined for every
profession and career, have been brought up on
a footing of social equality, and have contracted

264 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
the most enduring friendships and some of the
ruling habits of their lives, and they have had
the largest share perhaps in moulding the
character of an English gentleman." We must
duly note the phrase, " all the various classes
that make up English society." It sounds very-
comprehensive, but it practically means only
those who can afford to pay a minimum of £150
per annum for the education of their sons. Had
the report appeared in the second decade of the
twentieth century some doubt might have been
expressed as to whether these institutions were
producing " the gentleman " quite so successfully
as they used to.
The great Public Schools have indeed become
very rich. The consecpience of this is that they
have lost sight of the main object for which
they were originally founded — namely, to educate
the poor. They are now using their money to
attract the rich. The endowments of all
secondary schools in Scotland are not so great
as the endowment of Eton alone. Lands were
granted to the college by the founder, Henry VI.,
for the maintenance of poor scholars. But the
scholars on the foundation, who in numbers
constitute less than a tenth of the whole school,
cannot be described by any means as " poor."
Harrow School was also founded for poor boys.
On the tomb of John Lyon, the founder, may
be read : " Heare lyeth buryed the bodye of John
Lyon, etc., who hath founded a free Grammar
School in this Parish to have continuance for

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS COMMISSION 265
ever and for maintenance thereof and for relief
of the Poore and of some poore scholars in the
Universities." The boys were to be chosen for
" towardness, poverty, and painfulness." The
land he bought in Marylebone increased in value
beyond expectation, but it was not the poor of
Harrow who benefited by this. In 1809 they
made an attempt to assert their rights, and com
plained that the elections were carried out quite
unlawfully. One or two fathers plucked up
courage to send a child to the school, but the
life of the said child was made unbearable by
the behaviour of the high-spirited young gentle
men. At last Dr. Vaughan helped them to build
a school of a humbler order by giving back a
sum of money from the rapidly growing founda
tion treasury. " Just so a child from whom a
shilling was stolen might be quieted by having
a penny slipped into his hand." In the same
way the endowments of the other Public Schools
have enormously increased. St. Paul's, for
instance, which was founded mainly for poor
scholars, has lands worth once £120, but now
worth £20,000 a year. Charterhouse was
founded by Sutton for the i maintenance of
thirty -five poor children and scholars. The
governors resolved at their first meeting that " no
children shall be placed here whose parents have
any estate in land to leave unto them, but only
the children of poor men who want means to
bring them up." *
* See note, p. 90, in "The Child and the State," by
Margaret McMillan.

266 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
With the exception of St. Paul's, these schools,
primarily endowed for the education of the poor,
have in their prosperity drifted to the very
opposite extreme, and are specially distinguished
to-day as institutions to which only the very,
well-to-do can send their sons.
The Commissioners— having probably been
Public School boys themselves — accepted the
Public School system and the idea of a separate
education for gentlemen, and there is not a word
in their report to cast any doubt on the desira
bility of these institutions, to suggest fundamental
change, or to propose a return to the original
intentions of the founders. The larger point,
therefore, is hardly touched, but the question of
the efficiency of the schools as educational instru
ments is fully gone into.
Mr. Gladstone wrote to one of the Com
missioners : " The amount of work which we
get out of the boys at our Public Schools-
speaking of the mass of them— is scandalously
small." The Commissioners quote tutor after tutor of
Universities who came forward to say that the
men coming from these schools were mostly men
of excellent principles and manners, but many
they call " indolent," " unawakened," " inaccu
rate," " men of idle habits and empty, unculti
vated minds." It was, indeed, obvious enough
by the evidence that most of the schools were
in a state of stagnation and neglect. But it is
hardly surprising that this should have been the

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS COMMISSION 267
case, considering that the period of educational
revival had not dawned. And it would be un
reasonable to expect in the sixties that these very
conservative establishments had hit on new
methods or conceived original ideas. We hear,
therefore, without surprise that mathematics
were hardly taught, French in some cases not at
all, music not at all, and that the proportion
of masters to boys was one to forty. One head
master declared fifty ought to be managed in
one class, and another head master said there
was no time to teach foreign languages.
" The whole Press of the United Kingdom,
whether friendly or unfriendly, whether religious,
political, educational, or scientific, had with
appalling unanimity summed up the general
result of the Report of the Commissioners in
the one ugly word failure." *
To compare the state of affairs in the sixties
with fifty years previously is a very different
thing from comparing it with fifty years sub
sequently. The spread of education has entirely
altered our views of what should be taught, how
it should be taught, and the effect it has on
the learner. It would be more correct to say
that we now have views where formerly we had
none. Yet Dr. Arnold did more for the im
provement of the Public School system before
* The Rev. F. W. Farrar on " Defects in Public School
Education." " In one word we may say the Commissioners
find Public School Education to be a failure " {The Times,
March 28, 1864).

268 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
the Royal Commission sat than has been done
since. In Rugby, where he went in 1828, he
found a school without marked character and
unencumbered by ancient traditions. It was
therefore a favourable field for a reformer to
work in. While maintaining the pre-eminence
of the classics as the best vehicle for the study
of languages, he was the first to add mathematics,
modern history, and modern languages. Rugby
also has been specially fortunate since then in
its remarkable succession of distinguished and
enterprising head masters.
But have Public Schools as a whole changed
very much since the sixties except to increase
in size in direct opposition to the advice of the
Commissioners? "It seems clear," they say,
" that the numbers of a Public School should
not exceed what a single Head can himself
exercise some actual personal influence upon."
And again on the subject of increase : " We
cannot think that its indefinite advance is
desirable." The table on the page opposite shows the great
increase in numbers in five of the largest schools,
and though classes have decreased in size they
are still absolutely unwieldy.
The Public School system is more popular than
ever. No less than 113 schools of this kind
are entered in thfe " Public Schools' Year Book,"
and of these forty-six were founded during the
nineteenth century.
But there is no really noteworthy change in

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS COMMISSION 269
most of these schools. Speaking of the early
eighties an ex-Public School boy says : " Many
boys learnt very little indeed, contriving to go
through the school with a really surprising lack
of mental effort. ... In many respects the
school-work was idiotically useless and bad, a
great part of it having seemingly been devised
to entail a maximum of drudgery with a

Number of
Boys.

Number of
Masters.

Approximate
Size of Class.*

Eton 

. 18611911

806
1,000

32 66

4025

Harrow

. 1861
1911

481 600

2246

3530

Winchester ..

1861 1911

200
400

12
34

4025

Rngby 

. 18611911

463
570

1939

40
25

Charterhouse ..

1861 1911

116
560

9
34

20 30

minimum of useful information." f The ex
periences of a boy at a later period are given
in Chapter XI. And more recently still a very
similar tale could be told, though perhaps more
pressure is brought to bear to prepare boys for
examination, and in some of the schools subjects
* There are smaller classes for special subjects, and in
some cases the classes are larger than the figure given.
t " Floreat Etona," by Ralph Nevill.

270 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
are taught which were not included twenty or
thirty years ago.
But it is not adding a half-hour here or an
extra lesson there, stopping Greek in the lower
forms, giving an hour or so to English litera-^
ture, or altering the curriculum in the Upper
School that changes a system. The aristocratic
spirit, the exclusive tradition, the conservative
intention is precisely the same, and there is as
yet no great desire expressed to alter it. An
actual change of system has, however, been in
augurated in certain small Public Schools that
have been founded quite recently. Not being
fettered by any hide-bound traditions, they are
attempting to correct some of the worst features
in the old Public School course, and their ex
periments are proving of great service.
The various advantages of classical and non-
classical education come in for a good deal of
discussion in the course of the evidence taken
by the Commissioners. They reported: "We
are of opinion that the classical languages and
literature should continue to hold as they do,
now the principal place in Public School educa
tion." Although the relative claims of the two
systems had not reached the acutely controversial
stage they have to-day, there have for long been
exponents of both sides of the question.
Eachard, in his " Contempt of Clergy," in
1672, expresses himself very warmly on the
subject. He complains of boys being kept " in
pure slavery to a few Latin and Greek words."

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS COMMISSION 271
He suggests " the reading of some innocent
English authors, where they need not go every
line so unwillingly to a tormenting dictionary,
and whereby they might come in a short time
to apprehend common sense and to begin to judge
what is true. . . ." " You know very well. Sir,
that Lads in the general have but a kind of ugly
and odd conception of Learning and look upon it
as such a starving thing and unnecessary per
fection (especially as it is usually dispens'd out
unto them) that ninepins and span counter
are judged much more heavenly Employments,
and therefore what pleasure do we think can
such a one take in being bound to get against
breakfast two or three hundred Rumblers out
of Homer, in commendation of Achilles's Toe or
the Grecian's Boots ? "
But it is not the subject of study that is at
fault. Every one would admit that in the
interests of the highest form of culture a
familiarity with the literature of the ancient
world is indispensable. The question is whether
it should be the first study for boys at the age
of ten or even earlier ; and secondly, if it is
undertaken, whether the method of writing Latin
in verse * and pumping Greek accidence into
unwilling minds is the best method to adopt.
* " If anything in the whole world of the unreasonable
proceedings of reasonable beings be artificial ... it is the
artificial forcing of Latin verses from crude English boys
who do not yet know what verse means in their own
mother tongue, who perhaps from peculiarities of mental
constitution never can know what verse means in any

272 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
It seems that Public Schools have at last
decided to mitigate the stringency of their rules
with regard to Greek, and intend to dispense with
it as an obligatory subject in their entrance
examinations. The chief schools have lately
issued notices to this effect with a view to dis
couraging, as far as possible, the premature study
of Greek in preparatory schools, and in some
schools classical studies are not insisted on even
in the upper forms.. This is all to the good.
But it is now fifty years since Dr. Carpenter,
of Eton, very wisely expressed his opinion on
this subject in his evidence before the Commis
sion : " I should prefer to see the faculties which
are concerned in the cultivation of Physical
Science trained at the earlier period (before
twelve), because I believe that is the natural
period at which the observing, faculties and
the elementary processes of reasoning may be
best cultivated and the period at which the
mind is not prepared for the more advanced
culture of language." After all, grammar, more
especially the grammar of a dead language,
is an abstraction which is extremely difficult
to grasp.* For example, the accusative case,
language ever spoken by articulate speaking men " (Pro
fessor Blackie on the Conversational Element in the Study
of Language).
* " I ask you whether this ' land of just and old renown'
has not a right to expect from her institutions a culture
which shall embrace something more than declension and
conjugation " (Professor Tyndall in " Modern Culture ").

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS COMMISSION 273
the aorist tense, the subjunctive mood, the
passive voice, the declension of a noun, the
governance of a preposition, gerundive attrac
tions, suboblique clauses, and semi-deponents are
subtleties of language which can only be taught
by rote and rule. Their value as essentials in
the knowledge of language cannot appeal to the
child -mind. Yet, as Milton said in his letter on
Education, children are made to " stick unreason
ably in these grammatick flats and shallows."
Whereas the law of gravity, the action of fire, or
the composition of air and water present them
selves as concrete facts, which immediately
interest an observant, youthful intelligence and
rouse its reasoning faculties. In the former case
the elements are at first meaningless and dull,
because they are only the preparation for a long
and arduous study, which may never be suffi
ciently prolonged to reach its full utility as a
vehicle of interpretation. In the latter, the
elements are steps. The whole flight may be
a long one, but each step reached is so much
positive knowledge gained.*
The controversy now is not between those
* "We think it established that the study of natural
science develops better than any other studies the observing
faculties ; disciplines the intellect by teaching induction as
well as deduction ; supplies a useful balance to the studies
of language and mathematics and provides much instruction
of great value for the occupation of after-life " (Report of
Lord Taunton's Commission in 1864 to inquire into the
Management of Endowed Schools). 18

274 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
who want a purely classical course and those
who advocate an exclusively scientific course.
But on the one side there is a fear that the
absence of compulsion may lead to the practical
elimination of the Humanities from any educa
tional course, and on the other side a con
viction that more time should be allowed for
scientific and modern studies as the best training
for the mind.
Without further enlarging on a question which
is still more or less under dispute, and about
which expert educationalists differ, one result of
modern classical teaching may be clearly noticed.
The gentleman of to-day is undoubtedly less of
a scholar than he was in the mid -nineteenth cen
tury, the late eighteenth century, and at certain
periods previous to that. This may be because
classics are not so well taught, or it may be that
other subjects have come so much to the front
that classics are gradually getting crowded out
and relegated to a less important place. The
authorities, reluctant to abandon the classical
tradition altogether, and yet uncertain how to
cope with the modern demand for knowledge
on other subjects, try to combine the new with
the old, and some therefore find difficulty in
giving satisfactory instruction in either.
It is becoming clear that professional
specialisation, which is being pushed perhaps a
great deal too far, is demanding a narrow but
high level of knowledge in one direction. The
Army, class, which was the first attempt at

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS COMMISSION 275
specialisation in Public Schools, is being followed
by other subdivisions of particular studies for
certain professions. Such a breaking up of a
uniform system requires careful control and
administration, and if the authorities wish still
to attract all boys, whatever be their future, to
the ennobling and more enlightening study of
classical and literary culture, they must at once
proceed to make this branch of learning really
attractive and alluring. They must endeavour to
show that beauty and style, the history of human
thought, and the development of human genius
are valuable assets of general cultivation, and
that general cultivation is indispensable as a sub
stratum in even the most highly specialised forms
of education. In fact, the specialist frequently,
fails from having built up the hard and
methodical fabric of his knowledge without any
regard for the finer and more subtle strains of
culture. But this would require on the part of the
Public School authorities a point of view with
regard to education in general which, unfor
tunately, they do not seem to possess. Their
attitude would have to be, " Show us the evil
and we will try to cure it," which at present it is
very far from being. Many of them regard the
school curriculum as laid down by an inflexible
tradition, and, with few exceptions, they are only
willing very occasionally, grudgingly, and reluc
tantly to make concessions to modern require
ments. Whereas in reality it may be necessary

276 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
in each succeeding generation to revise and
reconstruct, from top to bottom, the system of
training, in order that it may be kept in close
contact and sympathetic touch with the rapid
changes in social life and national development.
It is not too much to ask that there should be
a more concerted attempt, by means of sympa
thetic instruction to small numbers rather than
dreary lessons in large classes, to show boys how
they fit into the complex puzzle of civilisation
and to prepare them to play the part of men.,
Huxley's simile of the game of chess is an admir
able statement of the case, for it refers not only,
to the utility of scientific education, but to the
necessity for children being taught the rules of
the game of life.
" Suppose," he observes, " that it was perfectly
certain that the life and fortune of every one of
us would, some day or other, depend on a game
of chess. Should we not all think it our duty.
to teach our children the principles of the game?
Yet," he continues, " it is a very plain apd
elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and
the happiness of every one of us, and more or
less of those who are dependent upon us, do
depend upon our knowing something of the rules
of a game infinitely more difficult and compli
cated than chess. It is a game which has been
played for untold ages, every man and woman
of us being one of the two players in a game of
his or her own. The chessboard is the world,
the pieces are the phenomena of the universe,

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS COMMISSION 277
the rules of the game are what we call the laws
of Nature. The player on the other side is
hidden from us. We know that his play, is
always fair, just, and patient. But, alas ! we
know to our cost he never overlooks a mistake
or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.
To the man who plays well the highest stakes
are paid with that sort of overflowing generosity
with which the strong shows delight in strength.
And one who plays badly is checkmated — without
haste, but without remorse. My metaphor will
remind some of you of the famous picture in
which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at
chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the
mocking fiend in that picture a calm, strong angel,
who is playing for love, as we say, and would
rather lose than win — and I should accept it as
an image of human life."
The critic of our Public Schools, if he has
been a Public School boy himself, is accused of
disloyalty for turning against his own class and
against an institution to which, anyhow, he owes
his early training, whatever he may have come to
think of it later. But it is possible that some
believe they observe faults which gravely affect
the credit and efficiency of these schools, but
which are at the same time remediable. They
desire to have them corrected, and also to
see removed the grounds for the condemnation,
disparagement, and contempt which are being
levelled against the system as it now exists. Is
there any disloyalty in this? May such a critic

278 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
not prefer to imagine that with wonderful advan
tages, local, personal, and financial, these schools
might be commended by people in the future
as affording facilities for the finest and most
enlightening education that could be found any
where? Can he, then, be justly condemned for
refusing to be infected by the general blindness
and self-complacency, and for preferring to face
the facts and expose the errors and abuses at
all costs?
The next Royal Commission on Public Schools
should be allowed by their terms of reference to
consider the efficacy and expediency of a system
of privately endowed autonomous establishments
which exist exclusively for the education of the
children of wealthy parents.

CHAPTER XIII
UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONS
Erudition — Enlightenment — Scholarship — The boy on
leaving school — The crammer — The University con
trasted with the Public School — Examinations, scholar
ships, and degrees — The roll of fame of schools and
colleges — Athletics — The professions for gentlemen —
Political life — The gentleman's inadequate equipment
— Unlimited leisure unmanageable.
A CERTAIN amaunt of mental discipline and the
correction of inclinations, and also disinclina
tions, must of course be insisted upon, specially
in the earlier stages of a boy's training. But
the first phase of imparting rudimentary know
ledge and the later phase of cultivating scholar
ship ought to be undertaken with a view to the
main essential, which is the full development of
character and individual expression. Scholar
ship is too often considered an end in itself.
Boys who show any exceptional proficiency, are
encouraged to work to gain scholarships and
prizes more with a view to gaining credit for the
institution to which they, belong than doing them
selves any good. Very little comes of mere
erudition. It is not the prizemen or the double
279

280 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
firsts who make ipso facto the best citizens. If
questioned in after-life they, will often confess
it has been a handicap to them rather than an
advantage. Unfortunately they are the men who
are often selected to be schoolmasters. They
have been taught to perfect a talent which is like
any other talent and not superior to other talents.
The learned have always been able to im
press and even impose on the unlearned from
the earliest times, when their knowledge only
consisted of astrology, alchemy, and magic ;
and the more abstruse their learning is the
more will it retain the lingering traces of
the occult in the eyes of the ignorant. If,
however, scholarship is not pushed too far
and the young brain is not driven to strain
itself by mental gymnastics, but is taught to treat
knowledge as the pathway to general enlighten
ment, it is a very different matter. Enlighten
ment, which should be the object of all mental
education, means a broad appreciation of values,
a sense of proportion and a well-balanced power
of criticism. To make a very rough division, the
human brain may be said to show a tendency
in one of two directions— to specialise or to
generalise. Those whose tendency is to specialise
must be taught not to abandon themselves entirely
to their own particular specialisation, otherwise
their judgment and opinion will become warped
and their horizon narrowed, but to allow them
selves a general survey which will create in them
a truer sense of proportion and give them a

UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONS 281
wider vision. We may leave out of account the
rare genius who must be allowed to absorb him
self in whatever direction he chooses. In our
Public Schools there are very few who acquire
any aptitude for specialisation, and no part of
the training is adapted to reveal or encourage
any such tendency. For those who are inclined
to generalisation enlightenment comes by
thoroughness and careful grounding in a few
subjects, by avoiding diffuse teaching, which can
only result in superficial knowledge, and by cul
tivating the faculties of observation and appre
ciation. Literature is an essential, and the arts
can no longer be regarded as genteel pastimes,
but as inalienable elements in general cultivation.
These are entirely neglected in the gentleman's
education. If he shows any taste for them he
develops it in spite of the inclement atmosphere
of school life. The generalisation which is
encouraged is a generalisation without method
or object— a thin coating applied by some sanc
tioned prescription.
The pathway of education, in fact, should
broaden from rudimentary groundwork taught
with a view to scholarship. From scholarship
regarded as a means and not an end towards
enlightenment, enlightenment being in its turn
a means of endowing boys with the qualities best
suited for the true and free expression of in
dividuality and the fortification of their moral
consciousness. As it is, the acquisition of all
knowledge, whether elementary or advanced, is

282 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
bestowed and regulated with a view to passing
examinations, and with this restricted and narrow.
aim the process is cramping and the results un
satisfactory. " It would be almost impossible,"
says the writer in "Our Public Schools," "for
an average German or an average French boy
to know so little as the average English boy
who has received a Public School education."
With the last examination education stops.
When the young man is landed in his profession,
if he follows one, or when he goes down from
the University he is by way of being a finished
product. As a matter of fact maturity of mind
is not reached till between thirty and forty, and
even then a man should be able to display a
capacity to learn for the remainder of his life.
But it is between thirty and forty that a young
man is to show how his training has served him
and whether he is fitted to cope, not only with
the business of his profession, but with the
business of life. Having reached self-realisation,
he has still got the stupendous task of attain
ing self-mastery and self-control. A man's pro
fession is important ; the preparation for it may
be technical or general, and his success may be
due to special aptitude or good fortune. But
a man's life outside his profession— a man's
management of himself, a man's dealings with
his fellow -men and with the world around him
—is infinitely more important, and it is just this
that is so largely neglected and left to chance.
When a man's profession is going to absorb the

UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONS 283
greater part of his life, like the trade of an
artisan, the consequences of this neglect may not
be so serious. But when, as is the case with the
class in question, a full professional life is the
rare exception and more or less leisure is
the rule, his ignorance of facts and guiding
principles — his indifference to questions of
vital importance, and his blindness to any
interpretation of the meaning of life — is a very
serioiis matter.
A number of Public School boys pass from
school to a crammer. The existence of crammers
is the most complete exposure of the irrational
and utterly defective nature of the gentleman's
system of education. Crammers are quite honest.
They take the system as they find it. " The object
is to pass examinations. Very well," they say,
"we won't have rifle-ranges, swimming-baths,
chapels and playing-fields, but a few dark, un
attractive, bare rooms in London. The boys who
come to us will have no distractions and will
want to leave us as soon as possible. We will
do what your schools are attempting to do, but
too often failing because they try and pretend
they are doing something else. We will fill up
the boys' heads to the brim with the proper
mash for examinations. We will make a
speciality of analysing examination papers and
learning how to dodge the examiners. We will
prepare lists of technical words, catch phrases,
memoria technica, useful tricks, and in a few
months the boys, holding as much as they can

284 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
carry in their minds for the moment, will he sent
up for their particular examinations. We do
not pretend that what is pumped into them like
this will soak in, be fruitful, or even be remem
bered. But your examinations do not require the
assimilation of real knowledge. If they did we
should entirely fail by our method. What you
require is the storing up for the critical moment,
and only for that moment, of information and the
polishing up for momentary display of aptitude
and cleverness. We can do that by charging
and burnishing up to the very last moment. You
may abuse our establishments, but parents as
a matter of fact are very grateful for our exist
ence because we succeed."
And succeed they do. A large number of can
didates for the Army and all branches of Civil
Service pass through their hands and undergo
this amazing operation of temporary cerebral in
flation. The very fact that the crammers' method
succeeds is in itself the most absolute condemna
tion of the examination system that could be
found. Boys from Public Schools cannot even
make sure of passing the entrance examinations
for the University. They frequently have to
spend an intermediate interval with a private
tutor or a crammer.
The Public Schools, as has been already noted,
set the standard for the private schools. But it
would not be quite as correct to say that the
Universities set the standard for the Public
Schools. It is true they have certain examina-

UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONS 285
tions that have to be prepared for and passed.
Although some of the Public Schools have of
late shown a more advanced view with regard
to compulsory Greek than the Universities, apart
from this detail the general influence and social
tradition of the Public Schools are so strong,
the method is so rigid, and the atmosphere so
pronounced that the Universities are to a very
large extent forced to adopt a curriculum which
will be a suitable continuation of the Public
School career. Five years is the usual duration
of Public School life, and three years of shorter
terms the duration of the University course.
Moreover, during the school age the material is
more mouldable and adaptable than later. It
remains for the Universities to put the last few
touches and lines to the already moulded and
hardening clay. The harm that is done cannot
be effaced. The two older Universities are also
class institutions, but they are the target of
much public criticism, and the system is not
so rigid and the hope of reform exists, whereas
in the case of Public Schools there is neither
hope of reform nor organised opinion.
At a University the gentleman's son cannot
be so strictly guarded against contaminating
intercourse with the professional classes. By
going to certain selected colleges, or more
correctly speaking by forming sets or cliques
within those colleges. Public School boys manage
to make their University life a simple continua
tion of school life with the same company, the

286 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
same pursuits, the same disregard of all that lies
outside their own particular sphere, and the same
blindness to the vital obligations of citizenship.
The Public School set with a few additions
associate together. They have their clubs, they
are at liberty to begin spending their money more
freely, and, in the sporting and athletic section
of undergraduates, they become leaders. But
there are other colleges, other sets, and a broader
and freer life at hand. Opportunities do exist,
though they are too often disregarded. Unique
opportunities they are indeed in such inspiring
surroundings, where the wonderful store of ages
of culture and learning should be placed at the
disposal of the nation. Here, if anywhere, there
should be every chance of broadening out the
boyish mind, and of giving it impetus to acquire
a desire for knowledge and a method of obtain
ing it which shall depend on self-reliance and
personal initiative, and not on the pressure of
outside forces. But most of the boys who come
up to the Universities from Public Schools just
lack the power of initiative and the appetite
of knowledge which might induce them now
that they are no longer in leading-strings to
pursue their studies with intelligence and zeal.
Intellectually it must be confessed the average
undergraduate compares very unfavourably,
with the student at any, great Continental
University. We are not here concerned with University
reform, with the waste of endowments and want

UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONS 287
of proper management, nor can we touch on the
failure of the Universities, with all their riches
and collected talent, to serve a wider public and
reach the poorer classes. The very presence of
a number of young men who are not there for
the purposes of study makes the problem of
reform at Oxford and Cambridge all the more
difficult. But we want to consider what the
Universities do for the richer gentlemen's sons.
Unfortunately it cannot be denied that although
there is less restriction and more opportunities
for expansion, the general effect of the University
course is rather to confirm than correct Public
School notions in Public School boys.
The same ideals are set. The class and pass
of examination. The strange mania for estab
lishing who can do best in examinations for
scholarships, degrees, exhibitions, and prizes.
This competition is considered the only method
of keeping young men up to the mark, specially
when the compulsion of school life has been
removed. There are various ways in which in
tellectual competition might be beneficial, but this
particular form of competition entails to a large
extent the storing up of examination tricks.
Freeman declared that " the spectre of an examina
tion deadened everything." It may be said that the
examination for an honour degree is so compre
hensive and requires such wide reading that no
superficial cramming will produce success. This is
perhaps true, but when all is said and done, have
those whose names have figured in the first class

288 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
of the honours list done on the average any more
in the way of achievements or service than any
one else? Does the label mean anything else
but pure unleavened mental proficiency? And
again we may ask is not this single intellectual
talent spoiled by being specialised and by not
having the accompaniment and balance of the
proper development of other capacities? A man
may, be encouraged to exercise the muscles of
his right arm till it attains a degree of incredible
strength, but that strength, though remarkable
in itself, is rendered weakness if his left arm, his
legs, and the rest of his body are not exercised to
support it. It was Goethe who said that much
use of the microscope impairs the normal use
of the eye.
The difference between our Universities and
foreign Universities— take a German University,
for instance— is, in the opinion of those who
know both courses, that in the one at home
you are made to cultivate your memory ; in
the other, abroad, you are made to use your
mind. Both in school and University success from
the worldly point of view, the attainment of high
posts, titles, and dignities is regarded as a desir
able and admirable aim. The tangible result
attracts ; it reflects glory on the institution and
the teacher. Certain colleges deliberately encour
age " pot hunting " and set up that sort of success
as an ideal.
In the aristocratic class it has hitherto been

UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONS 289
comparatively easy to gain worldly success from
the fact of its members being already at the
top of the social ladder. Therefore the schools
and colleges can become eloquent about the dukes
and peers and generals and viceroys and cabinet
ministers and bishops who have come under their
wing. Eton, Winchester, Harrow, and the others
can point to their list of prime ministers, field-
marshals and pro -consuls. But how few of the
aristocratic genus have emerged from the hot
house atmosphere of a large Public School to
a great position in the higher sphere of the
creative arts. Byron and Shelley can be quoted
as products of Harrow and Eton (Gray was also
an Etonian, but of humble origin). Shelley
was by. no means a success as a schoolboy, and
Eton seems to feel that she can hardly claim
credit for his wonderful genius. "Tamed by
affection," said his mother, "but unconquered by
blows, what chance was there that Shelley should
be happy at a Public School ? " Byron was less
unconventional, more successful as a boy, and
was consequently very fond of his school. But
it was of him that Shelley said "the canker of
aristocracy wants to be cut out." No doubt other
instances might be found, but they are few and
far between.
School and college authorities like pointing
proudly to their roll of fame, because they are
under the delusion, which after all they share
with most people, that those whose names are
most prominently to the front are doing the most
19

290 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
for their country, and must be credited with the
greatest achievements. The standard of popular,
or what might be more correctly described as
Press, opinion is readily accepted. Worldly
success in reality is a matter of very minor
importance. The work of education should be
more concerned with setting up a ladder on which
the lamest may climb, special attention being
given to the apparently inefficient. To become
celebrated is not a very high ideal for our most
prominent educationalists to set before the youths
committed to their charge. Probably if it could
be gauged the best work in the world is being
done by the obscure and unknown individuals
whose names never have and never will appear
in the headlines of the halfpenny Press. The
importance of the so-called average man cannot
be overestimated. But with dons he counts for
very little.
Athletics at the Universities is a more serious
business than at schools, but the compulsory
element is absent, which allows greater freedom
to the undergraduate who has no taste in that
direction. Publicity and advertisement, on the
other hand, are greater, because the youths are
now full-grown, and their athletic accomplish
ments have to be taken more seriously. Many a
young fellow is encouraged to devote a quite
disproportionate amount of his life to athletic
pursuits. ¦ ' [ , -I
On the whole, however, so far as the upper
classes are concerned the University influence

UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONS 291
helps to break down some of the ultra-narrow
prejudices and biased views that have been
inculcated by Public Schools. Boys who are left
to the tender mercy of crammers, who are sent
abroad to live with foreign families, or who are
kept under the personal supervision of a private
tutor, lose greatly from being withdrawn from
the influences of healthy association with their
fellows. No boy can avoid at a University meet
ing a number of new types, unless he deliberately
cuts himself off from intercourse with any one
but his old school friends. He can study these
types and strike up a friendship with young men
who are quite differently situated in the social
world from himself, some, perhaps, who have
not seen the inside of a Public School. This in
itself is a most valuable form of education. It
is not facts and accomplishments that go chiefly
to compose the essentials of life, but tendencies
and personalities. To realise the different atmo
spheres, the varying circumstances in which men
live, and to note the contradictions and the short
comings, combined with the boundless potentiali
ties of human character, is a study well worth
pursuing at a time when a boy has both time
and capacity to reflect. At the school his day is
marked out for him, and every hour is filled.
The thoughtless optimism of early youth needs
no time for reflection. But later, with faculties
more developed and a free choice as to the dis
posal of his time, problems present themselves
and invite solution. It is then that character

292 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
begins to assert itself, and the personal
magnetism and influence of sympathetic friends
can accomplish so much.
If both in schools and University more blame
has been cast on educational authorities, masters,
and teachers than on the boys, some of whom
may, perhaps, appear incorrigibly lazy, indolent,
or unresponsive, it is because the boys' minds
and souls are composed of a quite incompre
hensible and elusive material, which is in process
of formation. When fully formed we fail to
comprehend its potentiality even in ourselves,
but while it is budding it is still more inscrutable,
whereas the action of the masters represents
simply a method which has been approved, a way
of setting to work, a plan which is explicable,
fallible, and alterable.
The boy has now emerged. He will have passed
through the hands of not far from a hundred
governesses, tutors, teachers, lecturers, &c., of
various kinds, and from the age of ten to twenty-
one close on £3,000 will have been spent on his
education. Is it hypercritical to say that this is
an appalling waste of money and effort for such a
¦poor result? If he turns out badly the parent's
regret only takes this form : " I sent him to Eton
and Cambridge, I ought to have sent him to
Winchester and Oxford."
He passes into one of the gentleman's pro
fessions, which must if possible be a pecuniary
employment, having no taint of industrialism
about it. However well or ill he may perform his

UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONS 293
professional duties, he finds it difficult to conceal
under his assurance and easy assumption of a
position of domination a profound ignorance of
the art of living, and an absence of resource out
side the limited sphere of the functions assigned
to him. His natural qualities, maybe his per
sistent energy and his enterprising nature, will
perhaps lead him to success, but his training is
to the end a handicap. He knows well enough
I'art de vivre— how to get on, and have a good
time — but he has not learnt I'art de la vie.
" He goes out into the world and helps to
build up the Empire, doing things so well
that it seems a thousand pities that he was
not trained to do them better, and to face
the problems of race, creed, and government
in distant corners of the Empire with a more
instructed mind." *
The Army, where officers are allowed a con
siderable amount of leisure, is on its social side
very much like a further continuation of Public
School life for grown-up men. But even for
this the Public School training does not suffice.
Speaking of Public School candidates for the
Army, a writer declared about ten years ago that
their training was " by pretty general consent the
worst in the world. We supply the military
colleges with youths whose whole work often for
four or five years past has been calculated to
blunt their powers of observation, to discour
age them from pressing observed facts to
* T. L. Papillon in " Public Schools from Within."

294 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
their true conclusions, and to give them a
livelong distaste for books or bookwork of any
kind." *
After going through a technical course the
gentleman finds himself accepted as an officer,
but he feels like an overgrown schoolboy with
few inward resources, without special interests,
and with very meagre intellectual appreciations.
His energies therefore soon become centred in an
incessant round of sporting occupations and
engagements. His class consciousness is useful
if not essential to him, because in any army not
based on a conscript system the division between
officers and men must be very sharp. Army
officers throughout their lives are apt to regard
the whole constitution of society in the light
of " officers and men."
In the Church, in addition to the hampering
and deadening traditions which he finds there,
he brings with him a lack of perception and
ignorance of social problems, and just that note
of class consciousness which makes many of the
clergy a living contradiction of the most cardinal
Christian doctrine. But the fact that a clergyman
has been a Public School boy is greatly in his
favour, because the rich patrons know that he
will be unlikely to disturb their own notions or
make uncomfortable suggestions about their alter
ing their habits and ways of living. The present
Bishop of London, however, has frankly acknow
ledged the drawback of this state of things. "We
* G. G. Coulton, " Public Schools and Public Needs."

UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONS 295
clergy are largely drawn from one class ... we
are apt to like the poor so long as they keep in
their proper place. We read our class news
papers, and hear our class conversations over
the tea-table or after dinner, and in all we dp
and say class feeling insensibly makes itself felt.
We freely admit and deplore the great obstacle
which the ' caste ' system presents in India toi
the progress of the Gospel ; but are we equally
sensible to the subtle caste feeling which exists
as an intangible fence between us and the toiling
millions of our people?"
Among other professions, banking and financial
employments carry with them the suggestion of
eventual fortune and large ownership, and there
fore attract many leisured gentlemen. So long
as it is lucrative, any profession is regarded
with favour. What a man is making is of
infinitely greater importance than what a man is
doing. As a governor, ambassador, or administrator
the gentleman may do well up to a point ; his
social gifts may be remarkable, but too often
his inadequate knowledge penalises him _ and
just prevents genuine ability from piercing
through. In the Civil Service it is certainly not the
Public School boy who carries all before him
in an examination by open competition. The
following table shows the small proportion con
tributed by Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby,
Charterhouse, Westminster, and Shrewsbury to

296 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
the Home Civil, the Indian Civil, and Eastern
Cadets.

Tear.

Ntunber of Saccesstnl
Candidates from the Seven
Largest Public Schools.

Xotal Number of
Successful
Candidates.

1906

16

97

1907

18

92

1908

13

82

1909

17

89

1910

17

113

There are still a few back-doors through which
by nomination or selection gentlemen can find
an easier way into some professions. But these
are relics of a discarded system of jobbery, and
patronage, and are not likely to survive very long.
Under modern conditions it is perilous to reserve
any profession exclusively for " gentlemen."
In condemning examinations it is not intended
to suggest that entrance to the various professions
can be effected in any other way than by some
kind of examination. But such examination
ought not to be solely a hard-and-fast mental test.
It might be broadened so as ttf prevent the success
of the specially crammed boy by, taking some
account of testimonials and reports of the candi
date's previous school career. Such reports
might be drawn up in detail and registered and
preserved, so that on application to school and

UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONS 297
college authorities a more or less complete record
of the candidate's career might be at the disposal
of any board of examiners. Undoubtedly it is
difficult, if not impossible, to make sure of pass
ing the best competitors. But a great deal more
might be done by way of instituting a fairer and
less capricious test.
Public and political life, which can be entered
without examination, will continue to tempt the
ambition of the leisured gentleman. In this
sphere he can be a valuable asset, always
provided he retains the essential gentleman -like
qualities. There is one characteristic which may
often distinguish him and gain for him public
confidence and respect. It is that he can be, and
sometimes has been, wholly disinterested. He
ought to be incapable of unscrupulousness of
language or of taking doubtful advantages to
which the demagogue may stoop. When, how
ever, researches are made by the historian of
the future into the political controversies of the
last few years, nothing will be more noticeable
than the manner in which many of ,the aris
tocracy of to-day have entirely failed to preserve
a high or even a moderate tone in this respect.
How many speeches could be unearthed display
ing not the force and vehemence of strong
convictions but the petulant and ill-mannered
vituperation of uninformed minds !
Disinterestedness cannot exist where ambition
is personal and selfish, where there is a love of
power, a desire to dominate in order to reap

298 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
material benefits for one class, or a rooted
antagonism against the legitimate aspiration of
the undistinguished masses. In the form of aris
tocratic detachment also it may border very near
on indifference. But the quality of having no
axe to grind and caring nothing for the glories
of advertisement is one that will always be
widely appreciated.
In public life more than in any other field dis
interested service is of inestimable worth. The
more is the pity, therefore, that many a Public
School boy has found his ignorance of the funda
mental principles of the great and vital ques
tions of national Concern, and of the details of
the most familiar operations of social economy,
a most serious, if not a fatal, impediment in his
career. His very casual acquaintance with
classics, his imperfect knowledge of one or two
modern languages, his confused recollections of
snippets of Greek, Roman, and English history,
shreds of elementary science, and a few rules of
mathematics form a deplorably weak equipment.
Education is certainly no longer the mark of
an aristocrat as it used formerly to be. On the
contrary, he appears sometimes to be anxious
to show he is not well educated. Intellectuality
is considered rather middle-class. He will
deliberately cultivate a slipshod way of speak
ing English with a slight Cockney accent to
convince you that anyhow he is not tarred with
that brush. But should he desire to supply the
deficiencies of his early training, he will find

UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONS 299
it most difficult ever to make up the lost
ground. As Mr. Holmes observes, " In the great
Public Schools, where veneers of information are
being laid on the surface of the boy's mind with
a view to his passing some impending examina
tion, the greater the number of veneers the more
certain they all are to split and waste and
perish." In the professions where he has to compete
with men whose livelihood depends on the uses
they make of the opportunities for education,
he must e.xpect to be left very far behind. But
when he has no profession, and therefore has the
most difficult task of all so far as living a decent
life is concerned, then it is that the disastrous
effects of his training are shown up to the full.
A large proportion of the upper class now
shrink from public service. If they must have
occupation, let it be in money-making. They
do not want to be bothered with the numberless
complex problems of the day, and where in daily
life such subjects are forced to their notice they
manage to laugh them off so as to avoid
discussion. It may well be said that there ought to be no
such thing as a man without a profession or
some serious occupation, and that an establish
ment which could teach a man to lead an idle
life that was fruitful and beneficial to himself
and his fellows would have to be something very
abnormal. This can certainly be admitted, and
boys might so be trained that in spite of all the

300 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
temptations of money and opportunity the idea
of doing nothing would be so abhorrent to them
as to be impossible. On the contrary, however,
their appetite to do nothing is whetted, and their
fellows regard them as favoured by fortune. Just
a little smattering is supposed to suffice as educa
tion, because the task they have before them is
considered the lightest of all.
Sometimes the gentleman who has command
of both leisure and money is seized by a
pathetic desire j, in after-life to do something.
One of the smatterings may have produced
appreciation, and appreciation in its turn am
bition. He will look about for short cuts.
But they are being closed up. The main road
is crowded, and he naturally hesitates to
match his halting paces with the swift feet of
the properly trained. In the creative world his
attempts to make short cuts lead him hopelessly
astray. A pursuit is taken up suddenly with
great zeal, and there is impatience and despair
at its failure. With feverish eagerness the desire
grows to act the part of a scholar, an artist, a
musician, a litterateur, a handicraftsman, without
any of the experience of his laborious days,
months, and years of pains and preparation that
go to make up the professional. His achieve
ments are judged by a different measure. The
privileges rank or means may give him forfeit
his right to be judged by a professional standard.
Allowance is made for what critics accept as
a sort of natural handicap ; " not bad for a

UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONS 301
man in his position." " Quite good consider
ing . . ." This is humiliating for the con
scientious gentleman, who at such times deeply
resents his want of training and the system
which binds him to mediocrity. Some ladies and
gentlemen are capable of and eager for service,
but they are hopelessly and unfairly restricted.
They have to submit to be classed with the rest,
whose ideal is either blank or one of the privi
leged domination, and with them to stand
condemned. When will people have the sense to realise
that a life without obligatory occupation or
-absorbing interest is by far the most difficult sort
of life to manage? It is full of snares and pit
falls, dangers to self, dangers to others, risks of
stagnation, of satiety, of futility, of worthless
ness, the breeding of vapidity, barrenness and
narrowness of character, and the setting of a
most harmful though outwardly attractive
example. It has been well said that " the leisured
class canon demands strict and comprehensive
futility ; the instinct of workmanship demands
purposeful action." * The mania for unceasing
amusement defeats its own object. The de
pression caused by an endless round of pleasure-
seeking is the most desperate form of depression
that exists. A child who scrapes up enough
pocket-money to buy a box of chocolates gets
untold pleasure from it. A child who is pro
vided with enough pocket-money to buy ten boxes
* T. Veblen, " Theory of a Leisured Class."

302 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
of chocolates instead of getting ten times as much
pleasure gets considerably less.
There is a good deal of talk about engendering
class hatred whenever the mildest criticism is
levelled against the upper class. The well-paid
worker has no feelings of jealousy against
leisured gentlemen. The worker is in an
infinitely superior position, and has every reason
to be proud of the share he takes in national
life. But when workers find their livelihood
imperilled by influences which they can trace
to the action or inaction of a parasitic class,
they naturally enough begin to question the very
existence of such a class. They alone are blamed,
but the true cause of their very often ill -expressed
indignation should be sought in the right place.
No man who had received anything like a real
training, whose faculties had been sharpened, and
whose imagination had been quickened, would
consent to lead a life of idleness. Leisure in
itself is most valuable. No one would grudge
a man leisure, and there are some millions who
could do with a little more. In fact, one of the
chief functions of education should be to teach
people how to employ their leisure by opening
their minds to varied interests. This is as
important with the rich as with the poor. It
is only those who have received, either at home
or away from home, an education that is ferti
lising and not sterilising who know how to use,
enjoy, and profit by their leisure.
But unlimited leisure is unmanageable. Con-

UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONS 303
slant idleness must produce cerebral deteriora
tion or mental debility.* A life devoted to leisure
is profitless, and a class devoted to a life of leisure
is the cause of much waste and distress. When
men become a burden on tlie comtnunity, the
economic problem that arises is equally serious
whatever their social status may be. The terms
of contumely applied to the wastrels of the
industrial army can be applied with equal rele
vance and fairness to the ill -trained upper class
idler. He may never reach the crisis of starva
tion which confronts his unemployable pauper
brother. But as a damaging element in the com
munity he has more influence, and is therefore
a greater danger. He can be described equally
well as " slag and unmarketable refuse," " waste
* " As regards the degree of mental and physical resem
blance there is between those who compose the various
'classes,' recent investigations have contributed valuable
information. Between the ' working-man ' and a member
of the ' middle class,' the latter and the ' gentleman,' the
separating spaces are almost equal. The physical develop
ment of the first is far greater than that of the second,
and the brain of the ' middle class ' man is of a considerably
higher order than that of the third. At what particular
time in the process of evolution occurred, and to what cause
or combination of causes can be attributed, the arrest of
mental and physical development in the ' gentleman ' has
not yet been ascertained. It would appear, however, that in
perfecting the race evolution is casting out the mentally and
physically deficient — the 'gentleman' — ^a not complimentary
conclusion which Science, who is no respecter of persons, is
being irresistibly forced to adopt " (from the Presidential
Address delivered in March, 1911, at the annual meeting of
the Royal Society for Evolutionary Research).

304 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
product of society," and "shirker," and he, too,
suffers from " defective training." * But there
is this difference, that with his advantages he
has far less excuse, and he is not driven by any
economic pressure. And yet, when we come to
think of it, scattered over the country carelessly
enjoying themselves, utterly idle, uneducated,
contributing nothing and wasting the substance
which they hold as a trust, there are, relatively to
the size of their class, a larger number of rich
non-effectives than there are pauper incorrigibles.
Ill -regulated and excessive leisure is one of
the prime factors in straining to breaking -point
the marriage tie. The relationship between a
woman with no household duties and a man at
home without any profession, however mUch they
may plunge into the whirlpool of sport and
amusement, is bound to be difficult. But take a
poll in our large Public Schools, and you would
find that a life of complete leisure is the ideal of
nine boys out of ten, and so little are they taught
of the interests of life and the obligations of
manhood that they can go through their ten
years' course without being disillusioned.
Men without occupation have the naivete and
childishness of arrested growth. They have no
notion what work means, though some of them
by native intuition may succeed in cutting away
some of the fetters their training has imposed
on them. What many gentlemen call their
* See leading article in The Times, April 15, 1912, " The
Non-eflEectives in the Industrial Army."

UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONS 305
" work " is very often like the lady's embroidery.
She has a design copied, she stitches a few
coloured threads in moments of zeal, and sends
the toilsome part to be finished by the students
of the school of ai't, and then calls it, with a sigh
of exhaustion, " my winter's work ! "
Many a gentleman's life is thus spent, subject
to the natural pains and sorrows from which
no human being is immune, but without any
experience of the sting of effort, without having
felt the pull of the stream because they have
always drifted with it. No career could be more
profitless and barren. They are gentlemen, no
doubt. They may have nice feelings and pleasant
manners, but that is not enough. The very few
in this class whose natural talents, outstanding
ability or strength of character safeguard them
from the ill -effects of their training and give
them the reqpiisite impetus to eschew the in
dolence produced by their surroundings will in
all probability come to the front. But in the
creative world, to be by birth and education what
is described as an aristocrat is almost an absolute
barrier to first-class achievement. It can be
repeated again that the characteristics of a gentle
man without any further backing and without
any substantial support are practically valueless.

20

CHAPTER XIV
THE FUTURE
Cause of decline of aristocracy — The aristocrat's position
to-day — His supposed advantages — Improvements in
habits — The amateur — Treatment of women — School-
training the weakest point — The dangers of plutocracy
—Arbitrary nature of social divisions — The fostering of
individuality — Necessity for aristocracy to face the
facts.
The rise of democracy necessarily entails the
decline of aristocracy. But inasmuch as the rule
of the people means the co-operation of all
classes, it is of importance in the general regula
tions of society to understand whither that class
is drifting which once held undisputed sway.
It is also desirable to ascertain to what extent
in this weakness and decline they constitute a
danger to the community as well as to themselves.
Incidentally too it is relevant to trace a future
course which they may follow and a new method
they may adopt, in order to enrol themselves
as useful participants in a more perfectly con
stituted democratic state.
No one can claim that the position of the
governing class, even during the last hundred
years, has not materially changed. No one can
306

THE FUTURE 307
contend that the leisured gentleman of to-day,
is a highly educated and indispensable member
of the community. No one, therefore, should
object to criticism being levelled at the weakest
points in his training and a warning being given
as to the dangers that are in prospect. Even
in his altered circumstances the aristocrat is
being grossly deceived, for he is made to believe
that he is given a better chance than other people.
It would be foolish to protest against any one
being accorded special advantages if these advan
tages were real, to withhold preferential treat
ment if that treatment made him happier, or
to deny him separate educational facilities if
the facilities were genuinely superior. This
might be an ideal method of producing supermen,
but such opportunities would have to be open
to every one. The spirit of the age, however,
is dispelling all these fallacies, and the turn of
the aristocrat has come for a correct valuation.
The investigation is discouraging. It is to be
deplored, considering the practically unlimited
nature of human capabilities, that artificial
agencies should be allowed to operate in such
a manner as to damp down the fire of initiative
and choke the rising spring of self-realisation,
thereby greatly limiting the total output of human
accomplishment. We are often shown how this
happens with the poor, but few are alive to the
fact that it happens just as much with gentlemen,
though from other causes which are more easily
curable.

308 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
Who is to blame? The vast number of
influences at work make any apportionment of
responsibility out of the question. But as edu
cation is of paramount importance those who
are responsible for its organisation and manage
ment, and those who accept as training what is
obviously inferior instead of the best possible,
lay themselves open to severe censure.
In the world as we find it to-day, the spirit of
altruism is far more widely, spread than people
are inclined to believe. Mutual aid, compassion,
and eagerness for service amount almost to
human instincts. General knowledge and the
increased solidarity of mankind have stimulated
these instincts. But lack of opportunity, be
wilderment from the oppression of mechanical
civilisation, stunted capacity and submission to
the bondage of custom prevent the active opera
tion of the finer human feelings.
The gentleman of the upper class is no excep
tion. He is showing in some cases that in so
far as he has initiative and control he is
prepared for service, eager and willing to do
what he can. Although as a marksman he is
clumsy because the weapon he is given is anti
quated and inadequate, his aim may be true
enough. If many are thoughtless and self-indul
gent, to a very large extent it is their training at
home and at school that is at fault. By some,
however, an effort is being made to rise to the
height of their responsibilities, to substitute a
higher ideal for the conventional level, and so

THE FUTURE 309
with the influences they find in their possession
to reach a truer standard of enlightenment and
utility. For these there is no need to be pessi
mistic with regard to the future. If only they
could instil into a majority of their fellow aris
tocrats the same realisation of having arrived
at a critical juncture which requires an entire
readjustment of their point of view and a com
plete resignation of all pretensions of superiority,
the whole caste might be relieved from the
suspicion of decadence.
The symptoms of deterioration have been
enlarged upon, but there are signs of improve
ment as well. The stream of progress has been
broad enough to leave its mark on a class which
can no longer be as exclusive and aloof as was
formerly possible. It is a noteworthy fact that
the younger generation are showing an abstemi
ousness which was unknown to their ancestors.
The debauchery of the eighteenth century and
the fashionable drunkenness of the nineteenth
are coming to be looked upon as discarded
customs of the past. In a concourse of young
men even in the Army and Universities it is not
unusual to find a number of abstainers. At the
same time humanitarian views, though still
despised in some quarters, have made immense
strides, and brutality and disregard of physical
suffering are rare.
In the upper class, although attainments in
learning and letters have fallen off, and although
millionaire collectors have taken the place of

310 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
the great patrons of art, the average of taste and
appreciation in art and literature is certainly
higher than formerly. The much condemned
amateur spirit, which in business matters spells
inefficiency, may in art, music, and literature be
taken in a different sense to mean the recogni
tion and love of the beautiful. A large number
of people who are capable of appreciating and
criticising works of art, the performance and
writing of music, or thought and imagination
in literature, is in some ways preferable to a
very small number who greatly excel as expo
nents, while the vast majority remain utterly
ignorant. This form of artistic perception exists
in the upper class, but it is largely discounted
by the craving of smart society to vitiate the
standard of true excellence by rapturous enthu
siasm over the second-rate. So long as the
aesthetic sense consists in nothing more than
instinctive good taste for decoration and furni
ture, or an eye for colour and outline, it may
be proportionately more widespread in the upper
class than elsewhere. Their surroundings help
them. But the moment the aesthetic sense
requires to be supplemented by mental effort and
intellectual discrimination it must be sought else
where. It is in provincial towns, where leisured
aristocrats are non-existent, that the best music
or drama or literature is justly valued and
warmly welcomed with real intelligence and
artistic sympathy.
Enough has been said about manners to show

THE FUTURE 311
that, pleasant as they may be, too much impor
tance should not be attached lo them, and fear
has been expressed that the characteristics which
accompanied the courtliness of the past are dis
appearing. Nevertheless the gentleman in this
class does still show a deferential consideration
for women, which he may claim as a charac
teristic to his credit. He treats a woman as an
equal to whom at the same time a certain amount
of chivalrous attention is due. His leisured life
and absence of serious professional work make
him more on an intellectual level with the women
of his class, who in their turn can utilise their
leisure to reach a rather higher plane of in
tellectual cultivation than many of their sisters
in other classes who are more busily engaged.
The relationship thus established is the direct
contrary to what prevails, for instance, in
Germany, where the custom of dissociating
women entirely from male interests makes them
occupy socially a different level to men. But
it is chiefly a question of manners and has
nothing whatever to do with morals. The
gentleman's treatment of women, though super
ficially graceful and deferential, does not affect
the essentials of sex relationship, which are,
taking them as a whole, more unsatisfactory in
the highest and lowest classes than elsewhere.
In making a study of the aristocrat one is apt
so often to find that the defects of his virtues
more than counterbalance the virtues themselves.
This much, however, may be fairly conceded.

312 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
If the choice for a post of some responsibility
entailing the management of men rested between
an ill -trained gentleman and an equally ill-
trained man of any other class, it would cer
tainly be wise to select the gentleman, even when
an aristocrat. This is paying a high tribute to
his peculiar qualities, and the only way we can
find of doing so without reserve or qualification.
In our general survey home training, and more
particularly school training, have been exposed
as the weakest spots. But the school, which has
so strong an influence over the home and over
the subsequent years of the boy's career, is, after
all, an institution capable of being radically
reformed. A dissolution of Public Schools cannot
be looked for, but it may be hoped that the
example of some of the quite modern institutions
which are doing pioneer work may gradually
be followed. Without any sweeping change a
great deal could be done by the acceptance of
a system which included some of the following
alterations : reduced numbers, more masters,
smaller classes, lower fees, greater elasticity of
curriculum, the mitigation of the examination
system, the abolition of meaningless competi
tions and prizes, more attention paid to character
development than to capacity to store informa
tion, and at the back of everything the teaching
of the spirit of religion instead of dogmatic
theology. More than this of course is wanted.
But when the hide-bound views of prominent
head masters and the timidity of parents are con-

THE FUTURE 313
sidered even these reforms seem outside the
bounds of possibility. In this direction, there
fore, no one can claim that the prospect is
hopeful. The aristocrat seems to have come to a parting
of the ways, and the choice that confronts him
is tempting but perilous. Is he going to fall a
victim to the insinuating allurements of riches?
However discouraging some of the signs of the
times may be, it is sincerely to be hoped that if
he retains anything of his former distinction and
good taste, he will not. So extreme, in many
instances, has the impulse for extravagant and
luxurious living become, so patently vulgar is
the ostentation that accompanies it, so inimical
to happiness is the course it takes, and so obvious
is the waste that ensues, that it is not inconceiv
able that a reaction— even a fashionable reaction
—against this craving may take place in the not
very distant future. The lust for power has in
all ages infected certain men, tyrants, princes,
statesmen, or conquerors. The modern equiva
lent of these is the financier. " For it is Power
not wealth or comfort at which they aim : and
in pursuit of that aim they trample under foot
all law and all morality. As the ancient tyrant
or the mediaeval baron robbed so do they : only
where he stole lands and castles and material
goods, they steal the symbols of these things,
securities and cash." *
The advent of a plutocracy we devoutly hope
* " Justice and Liberty," G. Lowes Dickinson.

314 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
is only a nightmare. Nevertheless, the manipu
lating of interests, the juggling in the moiiey
market, the mania for speculation, the creation
of false money standards, the international syndi
cates of financial adventurers to which Govern
ments become a prey, the control of the Press,
the ostentatious benevolence of millionaires and
the brutalising effect of the pursuit of wealth
give us a foretaste of the kind of calamity it
would mean. What is called the gentleman of
good family, almost more than any one else, can
help to prevent this if he will only step out
from the rut, throw aside his easy-going blase
callousness, side with his fellow-men and not
sell his soul for a five-figure income. If he is
a gentleman still he will endeavour to head back
this hideous incursion, if he does not it is because
he has ceased to be a gentleman.
With all their faults, the Press and the litera
ture of the day do serve to bring to the notice
of rich and poor alike some of the facts and
stern realities concerning the condition of the
people. Men, whatever their education may be,
cannot any longer live through their lives without
coming up against circumstances and events
which give them an insight into the economic and
social condition of those who live outside their
own world. The belief that each section of the
community is independent, and can develop along
its own lines and need only concern itself with
its own problems is for ever abandoned. Our
civilisation is a highly complex arrangement.

THE FUTURE 315
Those who try to live within a ringed fence and
shut their eyes and slop their ears to what takes
place outside are refusing to lake their part in
the general struggle and strife, by which alone
human life can be refreshed and made vigorous.
Society is an organic whole— the threads of
human relationship are inextricably intertwined.
Any section that deliberately stands apart and
confines its restricted energies to purely selfish
ends must inevitably perish in the long run.
There can only be combatants and no spectators
in the battle of life.
The service rendered by the aristocracy in the
past has been very much overrated, but they held
the. reins of power undisturbed. The day of
their political dominance has passed, though their
social dominance still remains. The elimination
of class distinctions cannot yet, unfortunately, be
regarded as practicable. But the differences in
social strata which are changing and ephemeral
are comparatively unimportant ; whereas the
common kinship of humanity is a fundamental
principle that requires to be more fully recog
nised. From this basis first emerge the natural
differences of genius, talent, character, imagina
tion, and physique ; and upon those distinctions
can be built further by human ingenuity devices
to fortify and protect the frail and weak and to
encourage and guide the strong. But the present
arrangement of society, from which we all suffer,
and yet to which we tamely submit, is the imme
diate cause of many of the social evils that exist.

316 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
It is based on the imposition of an elaborate
system of mechanical, arbitrary, unnatural
qualifications by which society is cut up accord
ing to low and senseless standards of money,
property, so-called birth, and titles, and its
defence rests on the declaration that all this
is inevitable and unalterable because it is the
handiwork of Providence. The desire to adhere
to the maintenance of the present artificial
social order can only come from ignorance or
the purely selfish fear that change may make
those who are comfortable uncomfortable. But
it is quite idle to stand up against the process of
organic evolution. A few little mites of beings
are not going to direct the course of an inexorable
law. That law is guided and finds the energy
for its enforcement in the sum-total of noble,
spiritual aspirations, which throughout humanity
at large are striving to find expression. Its
tendency, even in the cramped scope in which it
works in the upper class, is to insist in each
succeeding era, consequent on changes and in
spite of obstacles, on the organisation of society
on a basis of social justice.
When the causes of industrial unrest are being
anxiously sought, it is well to remember that the
seat of the mischief may not lie entirely in the
classes that are manifestly suffering from
straitened conditions. Those who have abun
dance and those who by their privileged circum
stances are freed from the stress of toil may, by
their reluctance to render adequate service or
by, their ignorance and incapacity to interpret

THE FUTURE 317
their social obligations, be contributing in no
small degree to economic dislocation and sowing
the seeds of strife.
Among the best types, whatever their status,
there is no very great difference of aim. The
true gentleman should be a democrat because his
acutely developed feelings of consideration for
others would make him' desire to place any
advantages he may naturally possess at their
service, and would make him ready to yield to
their governance when he recognises their better
judgment or finer skill. The true democrat has
something of the aristocrat in him, because, while
reposing absolute confidence in the people, he
would know that the supervision of a few. who
are selected for their proficiency is necessary
to give the best chance to the true enunciation
of democratic opinion ; and he would also know
that even when all men have an equal chance,
excellence of character and superior ability must
rise to the surface. This, indeed, and not a dead
level of mediocrity or a drab uniformity is his
ideal. The two, therefore, can work together
so long as there is no class pride or self-interest.
The aristocrat having renounced all desire to
govern by favour and having expressed his in
tention to serve with the rest may be welcomed
in the ranks by reason of his personal character
and individual efficiency, but not because he is
a superior person. His services may be of in
estimable value. His mere presence may be an
encumbrance. The choice rests with him.
In spite of the worst features in any type,

318 THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
be it the most arrogant, supercilious, ahd ignorant
aristocrat or the most embittered and unscrupu
lous plebeian, deep down beneath the ugly crust
for which a relentless heredity and the over
whelming force of circumstances are no doubt
chiefly responsible will inevitably be found some
pure gems of natural origin and real worth. Any
one with faith in human nature knows that
though they may not be visible, these gems exist,
and the hope of future betterment rests on their
being uncovered and placed in their proper
setting. If motives and action were based more
often on individual conviction than on the lazy
acceptance of tradition, or the persuasive force
of artificially organised opinion, the moral energy
of progress would be greatly strengthened.
The fostering of individuality, of initiative,
of self-reliance, the more natural development of
the mind and the more rational development
of morals should be insisted on in all classes
and in every generation. This is hardly a
truism, for so many are still accustomed to take
their social, religious, and political faith ready-
made from text-books, and rest their shallow
judgments on momentary expediency without the
aid of deep conviction, which can only come
from self-realisation. Men require to recognise
the importance of their own individuality and
the essential desirability of making spontaneous
and unaided decisions. The stereotyping and
stamping process imposed by Public School
training, which has been commented on in a
previous chapter, is the chief agency for pre-

THE FUTURE 319
venting the upper class gentleman from being
aware of his own powers in this respect, and
creates the necessity for his having to exercise an
undue amount of moral courage to strike out
an original line. Having been brought up in
blinkers, he is afraid to take a broad view lest he
should become giddy and lose his footing. On
the other hand, the growth in all classes of a social
consciousness and the habit of envisaging every
problem with a larger focus will tend towards
the acquisition of a truer sense of value and
proportion, and will prevent the too easy accept
ance of the cheap philosophy of so-called worldly,
wisdom. Aristocrats have to fight against more
rigid conventions and more deeply ingrained
mental inertia than perhaps any other class.
They require, therefore, to be more rudely dis
turbed and more roughly shaken from their
moral lassitude. Struggle is the price of pro
gress. But most of them hate struggle, and are
indifferent about progress, which seems to involve
their own transformation.
Whatever good characteristics may be pos
sessed by the aristocrat they are not the
outcome of his blood and breeding or even of
his environment. The sheltered position held
by the governing class in the past, and the
fact of their never having tasted the bitterness
of the struggle for life, may have produced certain
pleasant qualities as well as defects. But such
qualities cannot be reproduced now in a society
that has so completely altered. However much
they may desire it there can be no return to the

320 THE DECLINE OE ARISTOCRACY
old order, even though reactions in their favour
may occur in the future.
Regarding the prospects from their own point
of view, their best chance lies in facing the facts
and in a frank avowal that in no way are they
better suited than any one else to govern the
country or dominate society. They are just as
good as other men and just as bad, but neither
better nor worse. What makes them different
is that the aristocracy now is in an entirely false
position. Of course they do not take this view
themselves, and when they can add talent to the
charming patronage they know so well how to
wield, they can still prevent a large number of
their fellow-countrymen from seeing their posi
tion in its true perspective. But hard, plain, and
no doubt disagreeable facts are making it ever
more difficult for them to keep up the illusion.
It is his social power to which the aristocrat
still clings. But he is masquerading in the
costume of his ancestors, and he is not nearly so
ornamental. A "make-up" at best can only be
a very tawdry imitation of what was once real.
If he will cast off his disguise, the man under
neath can emerge unencumbered by the trappings
of past glories— free, natural, independent, boldly
refusing to be bound by stale conventions,
shackled by discredited traditions, or entangled
in frivolous customs. It is not the aristocrat, but
the man, who is wanted, inasmuch as all hands
are wanted for the unending, work there is to
be done.
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.

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