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  ...class; the nobleman who becomes a guinea-pig keeps all his privileges but loses some of his tradition; he becomes less of a gentleman without becoming less of a nobleman. In the same way (until some recent and happy revivals) it seemed highly probable that the Church of England would cease to be a religion long before it had ceased to be a Church. And in the same way, the vulgarisation of the old, simple middle class does not even have the advantage of doing away with class distinctions; The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.  
At the same time, it must be remembered that when a class has a morality it does not follow that it is an adequate morality. The middle-class ethic was inadequate for some purposes; so is the public-school ethic, the ethic of the upper classes. On this last matter of the public schools Dr. Spenser, the Head Master of University College School, has lately made some valuable observations. But even he, I think, overstates the claim of the public schools. "The strong point of the English...
 
Chesterton, Gilbert K.

Excerpt from All Things Considered · This quote is tagged Vulgarity · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation.

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A little bit about Chesterton, Gilbert K.

Chesterton, G(ilbert) K(eith). Born May 29, 1874, London, England. Died June 14, 1936, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. A British man of letters. Chesterton was a journalist, a scholar, a novelist and short-story writer, and a poet. His works of social and literary criticism include Robert Browning (1903), Charles Dickens (1906), and The Victorian Age in Literature (1913). Even before his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1922, he was interested in theology and religious argument. His fiction includes The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904), the popular allegorical novel The Man Who Was Thursday (1908), and his most successful creation, the series of detective novels featuring the priest-sleuth Father Brown. · Can we improve this biography? Post your version

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