Today, it is hard to believe that in the heyday of the welfare state, universities were both more elite and more publicly funded than they are today. Back then, it was assumed that the benefits of academic training accrued not only, or even primarily, to those who experienced it but also, and more importantly, to the rest of the population, whose lives were variously enriched by the application of the arts and sciences.
现在，很难相信在福利国家的全盛时期，大学比现在更精英化并且更多的接受公共资助。在那时候，人们认为理论训练不仅－甚至是主要的－使接受它的人受益，更重要的是，对其他的人，他们的生命不同程度的因为艺术和科学的应用而变得丰富起来。