Among the varieties of the Snob Clerical, the University Snob and the
Scholastic Snob ought never to be forgotten; they form a very strong
battalion in the black-coated army.
The wisdom of our ancestors (which I admire more and more every day)
seemed to have determined that education of youth was so paltry and
unimportant a matter, that almost any man, armed with a birch and
regulation cassock and degree, might undertake the charge: and many an
honest country gentleman may be found to the present day, who takes very
good care to have a character with his butler when he engages him
and will not purchase a horse without the warranty and the closest
inspection; but sends off his son, young John Thomas, to school without
asking any questions about the Schoolmaster, and places the lad at
Switchester College, under Doctor Block, because he (the good old
English gentleman) had been at Switchester, under Doctor Buzwig, forty
years ago.
We have a love for all little boys at school; for many scores of
thousands of them read and love PUNCH:--may he never write a word that
shall not be honest and fit for them to read! He will not have his young
friends to be Snobs in the future, or to be bullied by Snobs, or
given over to such to be educated. Our connexion with the youth at the
Universities is very close and affectionate. The candid undergraduate
is our friend. The pompous old College Don trembles in his common room,
lest we should attack him and show him up as a Snob.
When railroads were threatening to invade the land which they have
since conquered, it may be recollected what a shrieking and outcry the
authorities of Oxford and Eton made, lest the iron abominations should
come near those seats of pure learning, and tempt the British youth
astray. The supplications were in vain; the railroad is in upon them,
and the old-world institutions are doomed. I felt charmed to read in the
papers the other day a most veracious puffing advertisement headed, 'To
College and back for Five Shillings.' 'The College Gardens (it said)
will be thrown open on this occasion; the College youths will perform
a regatta; the Chapel of King's College will have its celebrated
music;'--and all for five shillings! The Goths have got into Rome;
Napoleon Stephenson draws his republican lines round the sacred old
cities and the ecclesiastical big-wigs who garrison them must prepare to
lay down key and crosier before the iron conqueror.
If you consider, dear reader, what profound snobbishness the University
System produced, you will allow that it is time to attack some of those
feudal middle-age superstitions. If you go down for five shillings to
look at the 'College Youths,' you may see one sneaking down the court
without a tassel to his cap; another with a gold or silver fringe to his
velvet trencher; a third lad with a master's gown and hat, walking at
ease over the sacred College grass-plats, which common men must not
tread on.
He may do it because he is a nobleman. Because a lad is a lord, the
University gives him a degree at the end of two years which another is
seven in acquiring. Because he is a lord, he has no call to go through
an examination. Any man who has not been to College and back for
five shillings, would not believe in such distinctions in a place of
education, so absurd and monstrous do they seem to be.
The lads with gold and silver lace are sons of rich gentlemen and
called Fellow Commoners; they are privileged to feed better than the
pensioners, and to have wine with their victuals, which the latter can
only get in their rooms.
The unlucky boys who have no tassels to their caps, are called
sizars--SERVITORS at Oxford--(a very pretty and gentlemanlike title).
A distinction is made in their clothes because they are poor; for which
reason they wear a badge of poverty, and are not allowed to take their
meals with their fellow-students.
When this wicked and shameful distinction was set up, it was of a piece
with all the rest--a part of the brutal, unchristian, blundering feudal
system. Distinctions of rank were then so strongly insisted upon, that
it would have been thought blasphemy to doubt them, as blasphemous as it
is in parts of the United States now for a nigger to set up as the equal
of a white man. A ruffian like Henry VIII. talked as gravely about the
divine powers vested in him, as if he had been an inspired prophet.
A wretch like James I. not only believed that there was in himself a
particular sanctity, but other people believed him. Government regulated
the length of a merchant's shoes as well as meddled with his trade,
prices, exports, machinery. It thought itself justified in roasting a
man for his religion, or pulling a Jew's teeth out if he did not pay a
contribution, or ordered him to dress in a yellow gabardine, and locked
him in a particular quarter.
Now a merchant may wear what boots he pleases, and has pretty nearly
acquired the privilege of buying and selling without the Government
laying its paws upon the bargain. The stake for heretics is gone; the
pillory is taken down; Bishops are even found lifting up their voices
against the remains of persecution, and ready to do away with the last
Catholic Disabilities. Sir Robert Peel, though he wished it ever so
much, has no power over Mr. Benjamin Disraeli's grinders, or any means
of violently handling that gentleman's jaw. Jews are not called upon
to wear badges: on the contrary, they may live in Piccadilly, or the
Minories, according to fancy; they may dress like Christians, and do
sometimes in a most elegant and fashionable manner.
Why is the poor College servitor to wear that name and that badge still?
Because Universities are the last places into which Reform penetrates.
But now that she can go to College and back for five shillings, let her
travel down thither.