ABSTRACT
The movement towards equality in social terms can be charted as manifest in the growth of specific 'samenesses' or similarities institutionalized in the social structure of the community. A more equal exposure to the life chances provided by education would enable children of talent from the lower classes to take their places in the higher levels of power in the new social order which was evolving; indeed, without these new recruitments it would hardly be possible to sustain the new society. The equality implied was one at the starting-post — a more equal opportunity to become unequal, as it was. Mobility was possible, desirable and should be assisted. At the same time, there has been increasing pressure in the twentieth century to provide the rest of the population with an education suitable to their capacities and needs, so that the further implication of the equalizing process becomes one of providing education which is equally appropriate but different.
