time: the refreshing river 



Benjamin Whichcote, a gentle Neo-Platonist, made Provost of 

 King's, proceeded to divide his salary in half and share it with the 

 extruded royalist. William Dell, made Master of Caius, used his 

 opportunities for urging a vast extension of educational facilities, at 

 that time unheard of. He believed that the Universities should banish 

 the classics, and teach rather "logic and mathematics, but especially 

 arithmetic, geometry, geography, etc., which as they carry no 

 wickedness in them, so are they besides very useful to human society.'* 

 He also wrote against the monopoly of learning by Cambridge and 

 Oxford, suggesting that it would be "more advantageous to the good 

 of all the people, to have universities or colleges, one at least, in every 

 great town or city in the nation, as in London, York, Bristol, Exeter, 

 Norwich, and the like; and for the State to allow these Colleges an 

 honest and competent maintenance, for some godly and learned men 

 to teach the tongues and arts there, under a due reformation." After 

 the Restoration, Dell retired to the country, and did not escape the 

 following accusations; — 



*'He has reported that the King and his followers were like 

 the Devil and his angels, and has approved the murder of the 

 late King, and the taking away of the House of Lords. He has 

 entrapped the gentry of the county into discourses and then 

 given information against them. He has declared in the public 

 congregation that he had rather hear a plain country man speak 

 in the church, that came from the plough, than the best orthodox 

 minister that was in the country; upon Christmas Day last, one 

 Bunyan, a tinker, was countenanced and suffered to speak in 

 his pulpit to the congregation, and no orthodox minister did 

 officiate in the church that day. Since the restoration of the 

 expelled members of parliament he has declared that the power 

 was now in the hands of the wicked, and that the land was like 

 to be flowed over again with popery. He has put forth several 

 seditious books, and before the horrid murder of the late King 

 he declared publicly to his congregation that the King was no 

 king to him; Christ was his King; Venice and Holland were 

 without earthly kings; why might not we be without.^ and that 

 he did not approve of earthly kings." 



Not bad for a Master of a College. 



100 



