COMPETITION. 125 



ally have an opening in his profession or line of 

 business, the rich man is able to equip them with 

 an expensive education which is essential to their 

 getting on in the world. A vigorous personality 

 always counts for much, but training is essential, and 

 training has until quite recently only been obtain- 

 able by the well-to-do classes. The English univer- 

 sities and public schools had until lately become the 

 monopoly of the upper and professional classes, to 

 the exclusion, even among these classes, of many 

 who differed in creed from the majority of the com- 

 munity. The doors of every profession were barred 

 except to those who possessed capital, and the children 

 of the poor were frequently unable to obtain even the 

 elements of book knowledge, except in Scotland, 

 where primary education had the start of England 

 by three hundred years. The fact that as many as 

 41 per cent, of persons married in 1839 were unable 

 to write their own names, illustrates how enormously 

 a large mass of the community must have been 

 handicapped by their want of training. 



Not only have the richer classes been able to start 

 their children with capital and a better training than 

 their poorer neighbours, but the poorer classes have 

 and this, too, in comparatively recent times been 

 actively repressed. We can in this connection recall 

 the fact that before the sixteenth century, English 

 labourers were compelled to receive wages fixed in 



