----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- May I take advantage of the Knight-Boulding competence of a number of HES members to add another query? In annotating Harrod's correspondence with Knight, I came across a reference to Boulding, which maybe someone could help explaining. Harrod wrote, in July 1937: "You speak of the decay of the aristocratic tradition. That is no doubt due to the low birth-rate of the aristocrats. I suppose the face of Oxford has been transformed since the last century. The majority of undergraduates are of an entirely different class. This is not, I believe, because the old class are not sending their sons, but because they have not the sons to send. The vacant places are filled by others. I feel that what I see going on before me is immensely encouraging, that what is valuable in our tradition is being preserved, albeit in a sense completely transmuted.* The manners and feelings of the men are in a way quite different. But the tradition of leadership is preserved and indeed transfused with a new vitality. The effect of this on the government of the country has not yet appeared. I have confidence that when the new generation does work through, it will preserve a liberal faith and a power of leadership and also a power of adaptation to new circumstances which will come to it naturally because it is itself of a different social origin." Knight underlined the words ' low birth-rate of the aristocrats ' and 'have not the sons to send', and commented in the margin, next to the sentence marked with a *: "Inf of women? cf. Boulding". Any ideas as to what he meant? Ross Emmett suggested that Knight might have meant that aristocratic sons were no longer attending Oxford, possibly because of the influence of women being admitted. In the midst of the latest Knight-Boulding discussion on this list, Ross wrote back to me and suggested that maybe Boulding was a case in point. Sounds possible, but I wonder whether there is some evidence supporting this. Maybe a biography or autobiography of Boulding could help: does one exist? Thank you. Daniele Besomi ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]