“Four times, under our educational rules, the human pack is shuffled and cut – at eleven-plus, sixteen-plus, eighteen-plus and twenty-plus – and happy is he who comes top of the deck on each occasion, but especially the last. This is called Finals, the very name of which implies that nothing of importance can happen after it.”

Changing Places ([1975] 1978), ch. 1, p. 16. ISBN 0140046569

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writer 1935

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