By the way, my wife and I both loved Master/Commander. We have a hetero-political marriage (she is a liberal). We talked a little about how many men in those days bought their commissions.
Then we moved into university admissions. In the early 20th century, entry to the finest universities such as Harvard depended far more on breeding than intelligence. Related to that, we discussed the policy of legacy-preferred admissions (like George W. Bush getting into Yale). We also discussed how the fierce competition among the finest schools for the finest students leads these schools to invest in lavish accomodations to attract them, driving up tuition costs in these most elite of schools.
I asserted that legacy-preferred admissions benefited the universities not only in terms of donations received from legacy families, but also from the quality of the people they are admitting from those families.
I don't know if that is right, but it sure turned out to be politically incorrect to say.
Later.