All the papers
took up the question, and all, with one or two exceptions, were in
favour of 'restoring'--that was the phrase--'his scholarships'; 'his,'
it was said, assuming that they were his originally--to the poor man.
In vain was it pointed out that these scholarships had been for the
most part founded in recent times when public schools and universities
had long become the property of the richer class, and that they were
needed as aids for those who were not rich, not as means of
maintenance for those who wanted to rise out from one class into
another.
The cry was raised at the General Election; the majority came into
power pledged to the hilt to restore his scholarships to the poor
student. Then, of course, a compromise was effected. There was created
a class of scholarships at certain public schools for which candidates
had to produce evidence that they possessed nothing, and that their
parents would not assist them. Similar scholarships were created at
Oxford and Cambridge, out of existing revenues, and it was hoped that
concessions opening all the advantages that the public schools and
universities had to give would prove sufficient. By this time the
country was fully awakened to the danger of having thrown upon their
hands a great class of young men who thought themselves too well
educated for any of the lower kinds of work, and were too numerous for
the only work open to them.
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