I remember discussing the lamentable shortage of good students with my teacher. He suggested that my generation (those that grew up in the sixties and their aftermath) was the last to produce good students. Since Thatcherism (the selfish eighties) and then the Internet and smartphones (the Age of Distraction), depth, dedication, discipline and devotion have become the dirty D words. Apparently even the Carthusians now last on average only three years before the lure of the external draws them away from God.