Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/405

 power," said one who realised the possibilities of this social revolution. "Your liberty, your rights, your emancipation from every injustice in your social position, the task which each of you is bound to fulfil on earth—all these depend upon the degree of education you are able to attain. Without education you are incapable of rightly choosing between good and evil; you cannot acquire a true knowledge of your rights; you cannot attain that participation in political life without which your complete social emancipation is impossible." The door of learning once unlocked, there were plenty of keen, poor scholars eager to make their way upwards, to earn a living by their brains rather than by their hands. They forced the doors of the professions which had been jealously guarded throughout the ages; they climbed the social ladder as it had never been climbed before; they rose "from corduroy to broadcloth, from workshop to counter, from shop to office, from trade to profession, from the bedroom over the shop to the country villa."

These are common enough transitions to-day. Not only toil and industry, perseverance and the acquirement of knowledge, but the accumulation