ai.] A LIBERAL EDUCATION. 47 



braced both these objects. The colleges, while they 

 incidentally aided 'in elementary education, were specially 

 devoted to the highest learning 



" This was the theory of the middle-age university and 

 the design of collegiate foundations in their origin. Time 

 and circumstances have brought about a total change. 

 The colleges no longer promote the researches of science, 

 or direct professional study. Here and there college 

 walls may shelter an occasional student, but not in 

 larger proportions than may be found in private life. 

 Elementary teaching of youths under twenty is now 

 the only function performed by the university, and 

 almost the only object of college endowments. Colleges 

 were homes for the life-study of the highest and most 

 abstruse parts of knowledge. They have become boarding- 

 schools in which the elements of the learned languages 

 are taught to youths." 



If Mr. Pattison's high position, and his obvious love 

 and respect for his university, be insufficient to convince 

 the outside world that language so severe is yet no 

 more than just, the authority of the Commissioners 

 who reported on the University of Oxford in 1850 is 

 open to no challenge. Yet they write : — 



"It is generally acknowledged that both Oxford and 

 the country at large suffer greatly from the absence of a 

 body of learned men devoting their lives to the cultivation 

 of science, and to the direction of academical education. 



" The fact that so few books of profound research 

 emanate from the University of Oxford, materially 

 impairs its character as a seat of learning, and con- 

 sequently its hold on the respect of the nation/' 



Cambridge can claim no exemption from the reproaches 

 addressed to Oxford. And thus there seems no escape 

 from the admission that what Ave fondly call our great 

 seats of learning are simply " boarding schools " for 



