Vocational Surnames and Victorian Era Class Barriers in Education

If one having the patronymic MacGyver descended from jailers – and if those named Smith came from smiths and, likewise, Coopers from caskmakers, Potters from ceramists, etc. – then it stands to reason that the ancestors of people named Dolittle[1] were bums. In class-bound Victorian England, which I am assuming is when/where the film Doctor Dolittle is set (I have never seen the film as I loathe musicals), the opportunities were practically nil for those with idlers and hobos in their genealogy, even if many generations back, to penetrate a socio-economic stratum that enjoyed access to advanced academic training. Indeed, during the latter half of the 19th century the vast majority of the English population was illiterate and the middle school graduation rate among those of humble lineage never broke 20 percent[2]. And yet the title of the titular protagonist of this film, a favorite with both the public and the Academy[3], indicates that he is the recipient of a higher degree, presumably in veterinary medicine or zoological linguistics. Having never seen the film, I cannot claim with certainty that it fails to adequately explain this apparent anachronism, but I strongly suspect that Doctor Dolittle is but another of countless instances in which Hollywood has asked its viewers to blindly subscribe to a plot that is based on entirely unrealistic premises and egregiously inaccurate portrayals of history and culture.

___________________
[1] Sometimes spelled "Doolittle", an alternate form encountered most frequently in the United States and in various Commonwealth nations outside of the United Kingdom.
[2] Pedagogy, Politics, and Power in the Victorian Age, J. Alfred Poindexter, Simon & Schuster, 1978, p. 438.
[3] 1967 Academy Award for Best Song. Doctor Dolittle was also nominated for Oscars in several other categories, including Best Picture.