192 UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL vii 



Lutlicr and of Leo — is Availing to come on, nay, 

 visible behind the scenes to those who have good 

 eyes. Men are beginning, once more, to awake to 

 the fact that matters of belief and of speculation 

 are of absolutely infinite practical importance; and 

 are drawing oil' from that sunny country " where it 

 is ah\ ays afternoon " — the sleepy hollow of broad 

 indiU'erentism — to range themselves under tlieir 

 natural banners. Change is in the air. It is 

 whirling feather-heads into all sorts of eccentric 

 orbits, and filling the steadiest with a sense of in- 

 security. It insists on reopening all questions and 

 asking all institutions, however venerable, by what 

 right they exist, and whether they are, or are not, 

 in harmony with the real or supposed wants of 

 mankind. And it is remarkable that these search- 

 ing inquiries are not so much forced on institu- 

 tions from without, as developed from within. 

 Consummate scholars question the value of learn- 

 ing; priests contemn dogma; and women turn 

 their backs upon man's ideal of perfect woman- 

 hood, and seek satisfaction in apocalyptic visions 

 of some, as yet, unrealised epicene reality. 



If there be a type of stability in this world, one 

 would ])C inclined to look for it in the old Univer- 

 sities of England. But it has been my business 

 of late to hear a good deal about what is going on 

 in these famous corporations; and I have been 

 filled with astonishment by the evidences of inter- 

 nal fermentation which they exhibit. If Gibbon 



