Thence we were passed into the great “caste” factory, a public school, where the feeling became, by mere process of being left to itself, as set and hard as iron. It is true that a levelling process went on among the boys themselves, so that a duke’s son was no more accounted of than a stockbroker’s, but nevertheless all learned to consider themselves “the elect.” Of ten public schoolboys, seven have come from “caste-”infected homes and private schools, and have active prejudice already. The remaining three may still be open-minded or indifferent; of these, two will infallibly follow the sway of the herd instinct; one may perhaps develop a line of his own, or adhere to the influence of a home inimical to “caste,” and become a “smug” or Radical. In result, failing definite sustained effort to break up a narrow “caste” feeling, the public school presents a practically solid phalanx of the fortunate, insulated against real knowledge of, or sympathy with, the less fortunate. This phalanx marches out into the professions, into business, into the universities, where, it is true, some awaken to a sense of wider values—but not too many. From the point of view of any one who tries to see things as they are, and see them as a whole, there is something terrific about this automatic “caste” moulding of the young. And in the present condition of our country it is folly, and dangerous folly, to blink it.[6] For all my love of my old school, for all my realization of the fact that her training equips her children with certain qualities invaluable to public life and public service, I do feel that she and all her sisters are disserving the national welfare by refraining from really active and resolute attempt to destroy the bad side of “caste” feeling. They let it grow of its own momentum through the herd instinct till it blinds the eyes and blunts the feelings of those who, being fortunate, must by the laws of human nature make the first advances toward friendship with the less fortunate, if those advances are to be made at all; and must make them not because to neglect them is dangerous, but out of brotherly feeling and a real hearty wish to give all the help they can to such as are not so lucky as themselves. I do not mean that our public schools and universities are consciously refraining. They are not, and their very unconsciousness in the matter is half the danger. And I do not say that there are no masters, or dons, conscious of the danger and trying their best to remove it, but I do say there are not nearly enough. A few swallows do not make a summer.