Well-Bred Man = old WASP families = clubbable

the Well-Bred Man =the old WASP families =clubbable =the elite social clubs: Ivy at Princeton, Skull and Bones at Yale, the Porcellian at Harvard.

These clubs provided the well-placed few with the connections that would help them ascend to white-shoe law firms, to prestigious banks, to the State Department, perhaps even to the White House. (From 1901 to 1921, every American president went to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton.) People living according to this social ideal valued not academic accomplishment but refined manners, prudent judgment, and the habit of command. This was the age of social privilege.

James Conant, the president of Harvard from 1933 to 1953, pointed out:

that American democracy was being undermined by a hereditary aristocracy of wealth.[美國的民主正被「世襲的財富貴族」破壞。]American capitalism, he argued, was turning into industrial feudalism,他認為，美國資本主義正在轉變為工業封建主義

Conant did not believe the United States could rise to the challenges of the 20th century if it was led by the heirs of a few incestuously interconnected Mayflower families.

How the Ivy League Broke America

The meritocracy isnt working. We need something new.

ByDavid Brooks

November 14, 2024
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https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/meritocracy-college-admissions-social-economic-segregation/680392/