will have a cumbrous body, and a mind incapable
of understanding any current of ideas counter to
that which has been flowing through it
unimpeded from the first. The very constitution
which in stormy times served to throw back
from the walls of universities the storm of the
world in its conflict, broke also its natural
waves, changed the direction of its currents, and
hindered the full action of its tides. Wickliffe,
teacher himself in an university, felt all that the
true heart of England in his day was throbbing
for, and he was tempted even to declare a wish
that there were no universities and no degrees.
More or less, in every nation and in every
century since that old time, the republic of the
university as a maintainer of tradition, more or
less shut up in itself, has lagged behind the
spirit, where it has been equal to the knowledge,
of the day. But it has not always run level, even
with the forward march of knowledge. New
sciences have started into being, and have even
arrived at maturity before, in our own old
universities, their bare existence has been recognised.
Some sciences are not yet recognised at Oxford.

Oxford or Cambridge University training, as
we know it now, is highly to be valued. Doubtless,
the entering to either these universities is
now regarded mainly as the joining of an
expensive club for young men, chiefly of good
family, in which frank and high-minded fellowship
is learned, while the profession of a student and
the high place given to the honour of the scholar,
temper with intellectual refinement the gay spirit
of youth. Classical and mathematical studies may
be pursued there to the utmost by those who wish
to discipline their minds for the exact study of
literature or science, and honour without grudge
and without limit is there paid to the successful
worker. The multitude leave with degrees,
which simply are brief testimonials that they
have been members of such a society, and that
they have quitted it without discredit. The
simple degree testifies to very little knowledge,
as men reckon knowledge in the nineteenth
century.

We do not underrate training like this,
although, it is not, in the truest and oldest sense,
university training. It may very well be that
the form now taken by our old English
universities is one that adapts them well for our own
time. There may be an untamed eagerness in
the pursuit of wealth, or of knowledge for the sake
of wealth; there may be a battle of keen wits,
instead of swords, raging among us; against which
it is good to set the repose of a college chamber
with an outlook on an empty quadrangle. It
may be well for youth to undergo the toil of
competition for an honour that secures nothing
in life but a lazy college fellowship or a quiet
living. It is wise training also, for the purpose
to which these universities are now mainly
devoted; namely, the provision of a body of true
gentlemen to represent the Church of England
in our parishes. Bat it is not to be denied that the
true meaning of an university is something more
than this. The college system has, in fact, choked
the university system. College endowments have
led to the reposing more and more of the
trust of education in a few college tutors
who are clergymen, and who can teach only the
little round of knowledge in which is supposed
to consist liberal training for their own profession.
They have no interest in observing, to say
nothing of keeping pace with, the growth of
sciences which are now contributing enormous
help to the advancement of the world. By the
university systems, sciences are recognised, and of
old time all knowledge was taught. But, the
college system as it has been maintained at Oxford
and Cambridge, supersedes the original design of
the university.

In the earlier half of the year eighteen
hundred and twenty-eight, certain scholars active in
the world—Lord Brougham, Lord Lansdowne,
Dr. Birkbeck, Mr. Grote, Mr. James Mill, and
others—formed the council engaged in setting
on foot a matured plan for a new University of
London. They issued to the public two
explanatory statements before opening, in October
of that year, as the University of London, the
building in Gower-street now called University
College. The design was, to teach within the
walls of this building, as far as possible, all
branches of science, and to open the doors to all
comers, whatever their creed or nation, leaving
each to select those courses of study which he
wished to follow, although duly pointing out how
much was indispensable to a sufficient general
education, or to the obtaining of licenses in medicine.
The scheme did not include residence under
university jurisdiction, and it did not include—
though it was meant to include when a charter
for that purpose could be obtained—the granting,
of substantial degrees in Art or Science.

The new institution, which in fact was a
college, lost its apparent right to independent
action as an university, by the steps that were at
once taken for the establishment in London of
a second college, carrying out the same plan of
a liberal and enlarged education, but demanding
that it should be closely bound to a religious
training, placed under the direction of the Church
of England. University College, then known by
its first name of the University of London, was
opened last October thirty years. Four mouths
before its opening, it was resolved by a meeting
held at the Freemasons' Tavern, the Duke of
Wellington in the chair, that, upon the principle
just stated, and with the Archbishop of Canterbury
for its visitor, King's College should be
founded. In August of the following year
King's College received its charter. In the
next month, the building was commenced, and in
October of the year eighteen hundred and thirty-
one, King's College was opened. The two
colleges competed with each other, and supplied
to the young men attendant on their courses,
steadily extending opportunities of study.

When King's College was opened, the law
officers of the Crown had approved a charter for
the college in Gower-street: establishing it as a
London University, with no other restriction
than against granting degrees in divinity and
medicine. A charter giving power to this