48 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



by the evidences of internal fermentation which they exhibit. If Gib- 

 bon could revisit the ancient seat of learning of which he has written 

 so cavalierly, assuredly he would no longer speak of " the monks of 

 Oxford, sunk in prejudice and port." There, as elsewhere, port has 

 gone out of fashion, and so has prejudice — at least that particular fine, 

 old, crusted sort of prejudice to which the great historian alludes. 



Indeed, things are moving so fast in Oxford and Cambridge, that, 

 for my part, I rejoiced when the royal commission of which I am a 

 member had finished and presented the report which related to these 

 universities ; for, we should have looked like mere plagiarists, if, in 

 consequence of a little longer delay in issuing it, all the measures of 

 reform we proposed had been anticipated by the spontaneous action 

 of the universities themselves. 



A month ago, I should have gone on to say that one might speed- 

 ily expect changes of another kind in Oxford and Cambridge. A 

 commission has been inquiring into the revenues of many wealthy so- 

 cieties, in more or less direct connection with the universities, resi- 

 dent in those towns. It is said that the commission has reported, and 

 that, for the first time in recorded history, the nation, and perhaps 

 the colleges themselves, will know what they are worth. And it was 

 announced that a statesman, who, whatever his other merits or 

 defects, has aims above the level of mere party fighting, and a clear 

 vision into the most complex, practical problems, meant to deal with 

 these revenues. 



But, Bos locutus est. That mysterious independent variable of 

 political calculation, public opinion — which some whisper is, in the 

 present case, very much the same thing as publican's opinion — has 

 willed otherwise. The Heads may return to their wonted slumbers — 

 at any rate for a space. 



Is the spirit of change, which is working thus vigorously in the 

 south, likely to affect the northern universities, and, if so, to what ex- 

 tent? The violence of fermentation depends, not so much on the 

 quantity of the yeast, as on the composition of the wort, and its rich- 

 ness in fermentible material ; and, as a preliminary to the discussion 

 of this question, I venture to call to your minds the essential and 

 fundamental differences between the Scottish and the English type of 

 university. 



Do not charge me with any thing worse than official egotism, if I 

 say that these differences appear to be largely symbolized by my own 

 existence. There is no rector in a English university. Now, the 

 organization of the members of a university into nations, with their 

 elective rector, is the last relic of the primitive constitution of univer- 

 sities. The rectorate was the most important of all offices in that 

 University of Paris upon the model of which the University of Aber- 

 deen was fashioned, and which was certainly a great and flourishing 

 institution in the twelfth century. 



