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.