A little passage for all you students
 

I thought this was amusing, so I copied it out so everyone could enjoy it! ;)

"Lucky Jim is a remarkable novel. It has been greatly praised and widely read, but I have not noted that any of the reviewers have remarked on its omnious significance. I am told that today more than 60 percent of the men who go to the universities go on a government grant. This is a new class that has entered onto the scene. it is the white collar proleteriat. Mr Kingsley Amis is so talented, his observation is so keen, that you cannot fail to be convinced that the young men he so brilliantly describes truly represent the class with which the novel is concerned.

They do not go to university to acquire culture, but to get a job, and when they have got one, scamp it. They have no manners and are woefully unable to deal with any social predictament. Their idea of celebration is to go to a public house and drink six beers. They are mean, malicious, and envious. They will write anonymous letters to harass a fellow undergraduate and listen in to a telephone conversation that is no business of theirs. Charity, kindliness, generosity are qualities which they hold in contempt. They are scum. They will in due course leave their university . Some will doubtless sink back, perhaps with relief, into the modest class from which they emerged; some will take to drink, some to crime and go to prison. Others will become schoolmasters and form the young, or journalists and mould public opinion. A few will go into parliament, become cabinet ministers and rule the country. I look upon myself as fortunate that I shall not live to see it."

Somerset Maughan - 1955

Hah... Paints a nice picture, doesn't it? :D

For the record I did not go to college.

So, he's not talking about me.

I'm going to college on gov't grants and I'm nothing like that at all.

Why can't the grants go to good students (me)? The Government doesn't even give me enough loans for college, much less any FREE money. But yes, it's correct. At my college, 62% of students never graduate. Most of them are going for free as well.

-Lasereth

There are grants given to students based on academic ability. They're called scholarships.



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The irony here is that the men from the lower classes ending up as headmasters, in parlaiment, etc. is something that is generally trupeted as a positive effect of education. I tell my students almost constantly that education is their ticket to the good life. For those of us who don't inherit it, education is almost always the best path for changing one's social status.

I love his writing, but what he's bemoaning here is something I celebrate.

Gilda

Besides, 1955 was 50 years ago, and the world still hasn't gone straight to hell, so I think time itself has proven his argument to be completely baseless.

You know whose fault this is...
http://www.grantcd.com/images/standing.gif