Excerpt from Thomas Hughes, Rugby Tennessee Being Some Account of the Settlement Founded on the Cumberland Plateau by the Board of Aid to Land Ownership, Limited

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Nonetheless, and in spite of this new attitude of the English landed gentry, there can be no sort of doubt that the Will Wimbles amongst them have largely increased, and at a rate far more than in proportion to the increase of the class itself. Go through any English county and you will scarcely find a family which does not own one or more cadets, of fair average abilities, good character (the downright scapegraces having decidedly diminished), and strong bodies, who are entirely at a loose end, not knowing what in the world to turn their hands to. At the same time, the need of finding something to which they can turn their hands gets more pressing. For it is clear enough that the ordinary younger son’s yearly allowance of £150 or £ 200 out of the family estates, upon which so many of them were wont to vegetate, will no longer be forthcoming, and that such boys will have to consider themselves lucky if they get a public-school education, and at the end of it are left to fight their own battle, with the help of an occasional £50 or £100 note from home at critical times.

So far we have only been thinking of the Will Wimbles who troubled the Spectator—boys of gentle birth and bringing up, the sons of the squirearchy for the most part, with no taste or capacity for study, but full of various energies and tastes which were intended to be useful to their fellow-creatures. But in our time the problem has grown in dimensions. A large class has arisen, far exceeding that of the landed gentry in numbers, whose sons are brought up essentially in the same manner as their sons,

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if not with precisely the same surroundings. The sons of professional men, manufacturers, merchants, go nowadays to the same schools, and acquire the same habits and notions, as the sons of the landed gentry. It may safely be said that in our time of change, when the old order gives place to the new so noiselessly, yet so swiftly, there are a few more striking, and, in one aspect, more encouraging facts than this vast increase of public schools in England during the last half-century. Fifty years ago some six or seven of these were educating little more than 2000 boys, on the old lines, which they had inherited from Tudor times. To-day, what with such new foundations as Marlborough, Haileybury, Radley, Wellington, Dulwich, Clifton; and the best of the old grammar schools which have started into new life; there are upwards of forty engaged on the same work of training what may be roughly called the young gentlefolk of this country. And, happily, the aims and methods of the education they are giving have improved as rapidly as the numbers requiring it have increased; till, in the best of our schools, where extravagance is sternly controlled, and simple habits are encouraged, little remains to be wished for. Our boys up to the age of eighteen or nineteen, have as good a chance of getting high culture, both for mind and body, as any that can be had now, or, I believe, ever could have been had, in any part of the world.

But what then? Thousands of them leave our public schools every year, and have to turn to such methods of getting a living, and to such proportions of the work of the world, as they find open to them.

Now, whether it be our British incapacity for getting

Of course many instances of success in trade may be cited, but they will be found amongst the sons of old mercantile and manufacturing firms, who have inherited thoroughly established businesses. There are plenty of public school men who have risen to eminence of all kinds, in literature, politics, science, while partners in banks, breweries, and manufacturing establishments; but very few who have themselves established any such business successfully. In as word, whatever may have been the case in other times and other countries, at this time and in our country is plain that the spirit of our highest culture and the spirit of our trade do not agree together. The ideas and habits which those who have most profited by them bring away from English public schools, do not fit them to become successful traders.

So, in sadly increasing numbers, our Will Wimbles within a year or two of leaving school find themselves stranded. The clever ones of their old school-fellows, or those with exceptional backing from friends, or exceptional power of pushing themselves, are doing well enough.

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But for them? They have tried door after door in vain, and are beginning to find that, for such as they, our time is indeed a cruel one. For every commission, cadetship, clerkship—for every post, in short, by which a gentleman can live, however humble the outlook of it may be, there are an hundred candidates. One is pained to think of what becomes of the unsuccessful ones, and to see and hear of one and another hanging round homes, which at best can only afford them food and shelter, and to very many of which even that is a hard task; or waiting in the purlieus of our great centres of employment, in the hope, so rarely fulfilled, that something may turn up. Such hanging round and waiting must take the heart and hope out of them—well if it do no worse than that—and make them every year less and less fit fight the battle of life, or do a good stroke of work for themselves, or any one else. Yes; of the many sad sights in our England, there is none sadder than this, or first-rate human material going helplessly to waste, and in too many cases beginning to turn sour, and taint instead of strengthening, the national life.

Poor Will Wimbles! In these last few years of deep depression one has been positively haunted by them in ever-increasing numbers—fine strong fellows, who look with such open truthful eyes into yours, thankful for the slightest hint, or guidance, or sympathy; hopeful still, ready to do anything, so that they may only be independent and a burthen to nobody. It is enough to keep one away o’nights thinking of them, gradually losing heart and hope'; becoming suspicious, cynical, envious of old comrades who are succeeding; feeling shame or remorse over the thought of possible careers,

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which, poor fellows, were never more than nominally open to them, and so drifting on into weary, colourless, middle age.

Here and there, no doubt, one sees, them living heroic lives in their narrow and depressing surroundings; devoting themselves to those who need such help as even they can give; making the dens of vice and misery in our great town “sing with the welcome of their feet;” spreading the light of steadfastness and content ocher some humble home. All honour to these; but they, after all, are the rare exceptions. No section of humanity produces any large proportion of heroes, and why should we look for them amongst our Will Wimbles?

No. We may reckon that for something like half the number of those who leave our public schools, and for whom the public service, the learned professions, or the press, would be the natural career, those careers are blocked and practically closed.

And so, on this side of our national life, the Spectator of 1881 has in these latter days a far sadder outlook than he of 1720, when the Will Wimbles in a county might be counted on the fingers; were a pleasure to everybody but themselves; or, at any rate, no burthen to the country houses, where they found their place at tables, and their sleeping-corner in the attics.