The period in which the main action of the essay takes place is known by historians as the Edwardian era, running roughly from the beginning of the 20th century until the start of World War I in 1914. During this era, the British Empire was still the dominant economic power in the world, and the upper classes of British society enjoyed an unprecedented level of prosperity. This prosperity exacerbated an existing state of Classism in Great Britain in which economic stability and success depended on social standing.

In this classist environment, the only way for the middle or lower classes to advance economically was to adopt upper-class cultural norms and values, and one fundamental norm was receiving an education at an exclusive preparatory school. Since the cost of attending a preparatory school was highly prohibitive to the middle and lower classes, families would attempt to get their children into a scholarship class. A student admitted to a scholarship class would attend a preparatory school for significantly reduced fees on the basis that he would, in turn, bring prestige to the school by doing well on entrance exams to an elite

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