The classics and class have always been ­uncomfortably linked. In this country's education system, knowledge of the classics was traditionally the ga… - Charlotte Higgins

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The classics and class have always been ­uncomfortably linked. In this country's education system, knowledge of the classics was traditionally the gatekeeper of privilege. If you ­acquired the classics (even as a humble stonemason's son, like Thomas Hardy) you gained a passport to the establishment. Fail (like Hardy's character Jude) and the corridors of power remained out of reach.