Learning's Labor Lost

Dalrymple also thinks the age of highly learned men of science is past:

Will we ever again see the polymathic like of Parkes Weber? How was such a man possible? Apart from a classical education, a congenitally insatiable curiosity, and a long life, what were the conditions that made him possible, though not inevitable?

The collapse of classical education, and education generally, must explain a lot, but he adds something it might take an Englishman to think of:

It occurred to me that he had one great advantage over us moderns: he never in his life had to go to Tesco, find a parking space in the hospital car park, cook a meal, take the children to school, or book tickets online. As one American economist put it, with a certain discomfiting directness, you quickly learn that one servant is worth a household full of appliances. Parkes Weber's career was evidence of this great truth.