Member-only story

Why Should Attending University Be A Prerequisite To Success or Greatness in Politics and Life?

Adebayo Adeniran
3 min readMay 28, 2021

--

Some of Britain’s greatest Prime Ministers and American Presidents never went to University.

Oxford University J A via Unsplash

Benjamin Disraeli, David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, James Ramsey McDonald, James Callaghan and John Major.

What do these names have in common?

Not one of these gentlemen, ever went to university and yet they went on to become leader of their country, leaving a powerful legacy of their time in office ( with James Callaghan being an exception)

In the pantheon of the greatest British prime ministers of the twentieth century, Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George are usually at the top of the polls.

Modern political aficionados must know that the likes of Benjamin Disraeli and James Ramsey McDonald had very little formal education and yet are remembered as phenomenal orators and writers, who have contributed a great deal to the English language.

David Lloyd George grew up in rural Wales, spoke English as a second language and yet rose to become the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Minister of Munitions and of course, prime minister, during the first world war. On his watch, he set up the welfare state, homes for heroes, unemployment and health insurance. He is remembered as the most radical and innovative premier of all time.

As regards Winston Churchill, he remains the standard against which other British politicians are measured, given that he was the premier who kept Britain in the war and one whose magniloquence and grandiloquence was in sync with the spirit of the times, when the nation needed skillful leadership, backbone and rousing oratory.

It’s all the more extraordinary when you learn that he had an abiding sense of inferiority from not having attended Oxbridge ( a portmanteau of Oxford and Cambridge).

In America, Abraham Lincoln sits at the very top of the pantheon of great presidents- which is…

--

--

Adebayo Adeniran
Adebayo Adeniran

Written by Adebayo Adeniran

A lifelong bibliophile, who seeks to unleash his energy on as many subjects as possible

Responses (1)

Write a response