370 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



enjoys, we must look, mentally, not to the present, 

 but to a succeeding generation. To expect that 

 such changes, as great as they are necessary, should 

 take place in the minds of those who have long 

 been satisfied with the present state of our learned 

 and scientific institutions, would be chimerical. Some 

 little advance, indeed, may be hoped for, because a 

 few steps have already been taken ; but Time, who 

 works slowly, but surely, is the best reformer. The 

 conviction of truth is rarely, if ever, sudden, while 

 violent changes, besides being in opposition to the 

 whole analogy of nature, have the acknowledged 

 evil of generally destroying that which only required 

 renovation. Where popular clamour, also, is vehe- 

 mently raised against any particular establishment, 

 there is danger that its true friends, by suggesting 

 amendments, may be confounded, or at least be 

 thought indirectly to co-operate, with its enemies. 

 We seek to amplify and adorn with new pinnacles, 

 neither to hide, much less to level with the ground, 

 the olden towers and spires, the columns and the 

 domes of our collegiate and time-honoured structures. 

 Nevertheless, we feel, upon so important a subject 

 as the present, the impossibility of avoiding all 

 allusion to our universities. These institutions have 

 long been considered — and in most respects justly 

 — the seats of British learning. They are alike 

 venerable for their antiquity, the noble feelings 

 which led to their foundation, and the bright and 

 hallowed names with which they are associated. 

 They were founded for the education of those 

 higher ranks of the empire whose feelings and 

 conduct were to give a tone and an example to 



