There was,
however, a chance that a poor lad might get one of these. If he did,
everything was open to him. The annals of the Universities contain
numberless instances in which lads from the lower middle class made
their way, and a few instances--a very few--here one and there one--in
which the sons of working men thus forced themselves upward. We must
remember these scholarships when we speak of the barrier, but we must
not attach too much importance to them. One may also recall many
instances of generosity when a bay of parts was discovered, educated,
and sent to the University by a rich or noble patron.
In the Army, again, many men rose from the ranks and obtained
commissions. In the Navy, this was always impossible, with one or two
brilliant exceptions--as the case of Captain Cook.
It may be said that there are many cases on record in which men of
quite humble origin have advanced themselves in trade, even to
becoming Lord Mayor of London. Could not a poor lad do in the
nineteenth century what Whittington did in the fourteenth? Could he
not tie up his belongings in a handkerchief and make for London, where
the streets were paved with gold, and the walls were built of jasper?
Well, you see, in this matter of the poor lad and his elevation to
giddy heights there has been a little mistake, principally due to the
chap-books.
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