Yet even
here there were exceptions. Every one, for instance, will remember the
case of the general--once a Poly boy--who successfully defended Herat
against an overwhelming host of Russians in the year 1935.
It was not enough to throw open the Professions. Some there were in
which, whether they were thrown open or not, a new-comer without
family or capital or influence could never get any work. Thus it would
seem that Engineering was a profession very favourable to such
new-comers. It proved the contrary. All engineers in practice had
pupils--sons, cousins, nephews--to whom they gave their appointments.
To the new-comer nothing was given. What good, then, had been effected
by this revolution? Nothing but the crowding into the learned
Professions of penniless clever lads? Nothing but the destruction of
the old dignity and self-respect of Law and Medicine? Nothing but the
degradation of a Profession to the competition of trade?
Much more than this had been achieved. The Democratic movement which
had marked the nineteenth century received its final impulse from this
great change. Everyone knows that the House of Lords, long before the
end of that century, had ceased to represent the old aristocracy. The
old names were, for the most part, extinct.
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