in.] A LIBERAL EDUCATION. 41 



state, what is to be said to the universities ? This is an awful 

 subject, and one I almost fear to touch with my unhallowed 

 hands ; but I can tell you what those say who have authority 

 to speak. 



The Rector of Lincoln College, in his lately published, valuable 

 &quot; Suggestions for Academical Organization with especial reference 

 to Oxford,&quot; tells us (p. 127) : 



&quot; The colleges were, in their origin, endowments, not for the 

 elements of a general liberal education, but for the prolonged 

 study of special and professional faculties by men of riper age. 

 The universities embraced both these objects. The colleges, 

 while they incidently aided in elementary education, were 

 specially devoted to the highest learning 



&quot; 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.&quot; 



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 : 



&quot;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. 



&quot; The fact that so few books of profound research emanate 

 from the University of Oxford, materially impairs its character 



