42 LAY SERMONS, ESSAYS, AND REVIEWS. [in. 



as a seat of learning, and consequently its hold on the respect 

 of the nation.&quot; 



Cambridge can claim no exemption from the reproaches 

 addressed to Oxford. And thus there seems no escape from the 

 admission that what we fondly call our great seats of learning 

 are simply &quot; boarding schools &quot; for bigger boys ; that learned 

 men are not more numerous in them than out of them ; that 

 the advancement of knowledge is not the object of fellows of 

 colleges ; that, in the philosophic calm and meditative stillness 

 of their greenswarded courts, philosophy does not thrive, and 

 meditation bears few fruits. 



It is my great good fortune to reckon amongst my friends 

 resident members of both universities, who are men of learning 

 and research, zealous cultivators of science, keeping before their 

 minds a noble ideal of a university, and doing their best to make 

 that ideal a reality ; and, to me, they would necessarily typify 

 the universities, did not the authoritative statements I have 

 quoted compel me to believe that they are exceptional, and not 

 representative men. Indeed, upon calm consideration, several 

 circumstances lead me to think that the Rector of Lincoln 

 College and the Commissioners cannot be far wrong. 



I believe there can be no doubt that the foreigner who should 

 wish to become acquainted with the scientific, or the literary, 

 activity of modern England, would simply lose his time and his 

 pains if he visited our universities with that object. 



And, as for works of profound research on any subject, and, 

 above all, in that classical lore for which the universities profess 

 to sacrifice almost everything else, why, a third-rate, poverty- 

 stricken German university turns out more produce of that kind 

 in one year, than our vast and wealthy foundations elaborate 

 in ten. 



Ask the man who is investigating any question, profoundly and 

 thoroughly be it historical, philosophical, philological, physical, 

 literary, or theological ; who is trying to make himself mas 

 ter of any abstract subject (except, perhaps political economy 

 and geology, both of which are intensely Anglican sciences), 



