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Burt frequently pointed out that the average IQ of middle-class children might be, indeed was, higher than that of working-class children, but the fact that there were so many more of the latter than of the former meant that there were actually more working-class than middle-class children with an IQ of, say, 115 or more. In spite of which, the vast majority of university students came from middle-class backgrounds. If this might, even today, be regarded as a reasonably liberal point of view, some of Burt's other attitudes towards educational selection, undoubtedly progressive in the 1920s and 1930s, were widely denounced as reactionary in the 1950s and 1960s by progressive educational thinkers and politicians.

This chapter examines the history of the professionalization of computer programming. It describes the need of programmers to establish the institutional structures associated with professionalism, including professional societies, certification programs, educational standards, and codes of ethics and suggests that the professionalization of computer programming represented a potential solution to the looming software crisis that appeared to programmers and employers alike. It highlights the struggle of computer programmers to prove that they possessed a unique set of skills and training that allowed them to lay claim to professional autonomy.

Some chose to learn scientific naturalism. Others were compelled to learn it. Anyone studying for a Department of Science and Art examination pored over every word of its published syllabi, past exam papers, and textbooks. Anyone wishing to pass an exam had to formulate their answers in the language of scientific naturalism. To establish this point, this chapter looks at how it became possible to simultaneously test thousands of candidates with exactly the same questions and yield results deemed trustworthy. It specifically reconstructs the workings of Huxley's May 1870 animal physiology exam, written by 3705 candidates, and the naturalistic catechisms used to pass it. Scientific naturalism and mass education emerged hand in hand.

In his landmark 1942 report on the reform of social insurance Sir William Beveridge talked about the ‘five giants on the road to reconstruction’—the giants of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness. This introductory chapter sets out the aims of the book, namely to measure how much progress Britain has made in tackling these five giants in the decades since Beveridge wrote, and how Britain’s social progress compares with that of peer countries such as France and Germany. Has Britain’s increased inequality been mirrored in other domains such as health, education, and housing? Have inequalities of opportunity between social classes, men and women, and different ethnic groups increased? And what have been the implications for Britain’s sense of social cohesion?