hop, may
believe these things can last; but every man of the world, whose
understanding has been exercised in the business of life, must see (and see
with a breaking heart) that they will soon come to a fearful termination."
He praised a comparison of the Universities to "enormous hulks confined
with mooring-chains, everything flowing and progressing around them," while
they themselves stood still.

When pleading for a wider and more reasonable course of studies at Oxford,
he says:--

"A genuine Oxford tutor would shudder to hear his young men disputing
upon moral and political truth, forming and putting down theories, and
indulging in all the boldness of youthful discussion. He would augur
nothing from it but impiety to God and treason to Kings."

Protesting against the undue predominance of classical studies in the
Universities, as at the Public Schools, he says:--

"Classical literature is the great object at Oxford. Many minds so
employed have produced many works, and much fame in that department:
but if all liberal arts and sciences useful to human life had been
taught there; if some had dedicated themselves to chemistry, some to
mathematics, some to experimental philosophy; and if every attainment
had been honoured in the mixt ratio of its difficulty and utility; the
system of such an University would have been much more valuable, but
the splendour of its name something less."

The hopelessness of any attempt to reform the curriculum of Oxford by
opening the door to Political Economy is stated with characteristic
vigour.--

"When an University has been doing useless things for a long time, it
appears at first degrading to them to be useful A set of lectures upon
Political Economy would be discouraged in Oxford, possibly despised,
probably not permitted. To discuss the Enclosure of Commons, and to
dwell upon imports and exports--to come so near to common life, would
seem to be undignified and contemptible. In the same manner, the Parr
or the Bentley of his day would be scandalised to be put on a level
with the discoverer of a neutral salt; and yet what other measure is
there of dignity in intellectual labour, but usefulness and
difficulty? And what ought the term _University_ to mean, but a
place where every science is taught which is liberal, and at the same
time useful to mankind? Nothing would so much tend to br