d body, but a loose gathering
of individuals, whose inherent attraction is allowed to condense them
into little knots and coteries. Our last snowball riot read us a plain
lesson on our condition. There was no party spirit--no unity of
interests. A few, who were mischievously inclined, marched off to the
College of Surgeons in a pretentious file; but even before they reached
their destination the feeble inspiration had died out in many, and their
numbers were sadly thinned. Some followed strange gods in the direction
of Drummond Street, and others slunk back to meek good-boyism at the
feet of the Professors. The same is visible in better things. As you
send a man to an English University that he may have his prejudices
rubbed off, you might send him to Edinburgh that he may have them
ingrained--rendered indelible--fostered by sympathy into living
principles of his spirit. And the reason of it is quite plain. From this
absence of University feeling it comes that a man's friendships are
always the direct and immediate results of these very prejudices. A
common weakness is the best master of ceremonies in our quadrangle: a
mutual vice is the readiest introduction. The studious associate with
the studious alone--the dandies with the dandies. There is nothing to
force them to rub shoulders with the others; and so they grow day by day
more wedded to their own original opinions and affections. They see
through the same spectacles continually. All broad sentiments, all real
catholic humanity expires; and the mind gets gradually stiffened into
one position--becomes so habituated to a contracted atmosphere, that it
shudders and withers under the least draught of the free air that
circulates in the general field of mankind.

Specialism in Society then, is, we think, one cause of our present
state. Specialism in study is another. We doubt whether this has ever
been a good thing since the world began; but we are sure it is much
worse now than it was. Formerly, when a man became a specialist, it was
out of affection for his subject. With a somewhat grand devotion he left
all the world of Science to follow his true love; and he contrived to
find that strange pedantic interest which inspired the man who

"Settled _Hoti's_ business--let it be--
Properly based _Oun_--
Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic _D_
Dead from the waist down."

Nowadays it is quite different. Our pedantry wants even the saving
clause of Enth