should approach the really difficult problem of the delicate virtues and
the deep dangers of our two historic seats of learning. A good son does
not easily admit that his sick mother is dying; but neither does a good
son cheerily assert that she is "all right." There are many good
arguments for leaving the two historic Universities exactly as they are.
There are many good arguments for smashing them or altering them
entirely. But in either case the plain truth told by the Bishop of
Birmingham remains. If these Universities were destroyed, they would not
be destroyed as Universities. If they are preserved, they will not be
preserved as Universities. They will be preserved strictly and literally
as playgrounds; places valued for their hours of leisure more than for
their hours of work. I do not say that this is unreasonable; as a matter
of private temperament I find it attractive. It is not only possible to
say a great deal in praise of play; it is really possible to say the
highest things in praise of it. It might reasonably be maintained that
the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden;
heaven is a playground. To be at last in such secure innocence that one
can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so good that one can
treat everything as a joke--that may be, perhaps, the real end and final
holiday of human souls. When we are really holy we may regard the
Universe as a lark; so perhaps it is not essentially wrong to regard the
University as a lark. But the plain and present fact is that our upper
classes do regard the University as a lark, and do not regard it as a
University. It also happens very often that through some oversight they
neglect to provide themselves with that extreme degree of holiness which
I have postulated as a necessary preliminary to such indulgence in the
higher frivolity.

Humanity, always dreaming of a happy race, free, fantastic, and at
ease, has sometimes pictured them in some mystical island, sometimes in
some celestial city, sometimes as fairies, gods, or citizens of
Atlantis. But one method in which it has often indulged is to picture
them as aristocrats, as a special human class that could actually be
seen hunting in the woods or driving about the streets. And this never
was (as some silly Germans say) a worship of pride and scorn; mankind
never really admired pride; mankind never had any thing but a scorn for
scorn. It was a worship of the spectacle of happines