The debate about problem drinking and how to stop it nowadays centres mostly on the working-class.young. They are highly visible-and audible-as they clog city centres on Saturday nights. But a chapter in a forthcoming book, "Intoxication and Society", by Philip Withington, a Cambridge historian, argues that it was the educated elite who taught Britons how to drink to excess. In the 17th century, England experienced a rise in educational enrolment unsurpassed until the early 20th century. Illiteracy declined and the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, as well as the Inns of Court and Chancery where barristers learned their craft, brimmed with affluent young men. This was the crucible in which modern drinking culture was formed.
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