ever present topic of Chamberlain's proposals was under discussion. 

 One of the visitors remarked: "You people ought to put a tariff on 

 the science teachers that you import from Cambridge." Immediately 

 one of the Oxford hosts retorted: "Oh! nobody is proposing to put a 

 tariff on raw materials." I have always looked back upon my two 

 months in Cambridge as one of the most interesting and charming 

 episodes of my Hfe, to say nothing of the intellectual benefits I there 

 received. 



As we had such a great deal to do in such a short time, we could 

 see but little of the festivities of "May Week," though we accepted as 

 many invitations as we could afford. I remember Michael Foster's com- 

 ing into the laboratory, where we were the only workers present, and 

 laughingly quoting Milton's "Faithful among the faithless found." The 

 bumping races made a great impression on me from two quite differ- 

 ent points of view; one was the picturesque sight of twenty-five eight- 

 oared crews on the river, the moving masses of colour made by crowds 

 of undergraduates in their flannels and blazers, running along the bank 

 and cheering the crews of their respective colleges. The other was the 

 comparative lack of enthusiasm on the part of the spectators. Great 

 crowds went to see the races, but they seemed to be but mildly inter- 

 ested in the result. To this sane attitude our Eastern colleges are slowly 

 approximating and when that is reached, we shall have all the un- 

 doubted benefits of athletics without the serious evils that afflict them 

 now. 



When the fetes and examinations were over and most of the under- 

 graduates had "gone down," there was a great day for the conferring of 

 honorary degrees and we were so fortunate as to receive tickets to the 

 Senate House. The ceremony was impressive in its simplicity; each 

 candidate in turn was presented, in a Latin speech, by the Public 

 Orator to the Vice-Chancellor, who then conferred the degree. The 

 gallery was crowded with such undergraduates as still remained "up" 

 and they were very noisy, loudly commenting on persons and proceed- 

 ings in the traditional way. I was both surprised and amused to hear 

 many people congratulate themselves on the orderly proceedings of 

 the students, no doubt due to the fact that most of them had already 

 left. 



The list of men honoured on that occasion was a very distinguished 

 one, comprising, as noted in my diary, Huxley, Leighton, Grove, Spot- 

 tiswoode, Sorby, Browning, Stubbs, Smith, Newton, and Bond. I do 

 not know whether the list is complete. Huxley was evidently the favour- 



[10. ] 



