A Liberal Education 67 



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 Suggestions for Academical Organization with 

 Especial Reference to Oxford, tells us (p. 127) : 5 



"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 incidentally aided in 10 

 elementary education, were specially devoted to the high- 

 est learning. . . . 



" 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. 15 

 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 20 

 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 knowl- 

 edge. They have become boarding schools in which the 

 elements of the learned languages are taught to 25 

 youths." 



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 re- 30 

 ported on the University of Oxford in 1850 is open to 

 no challenge. Yet they write: 



" It is generally acknowledged that both Oxford and 

 the country at large suffer greatly from the absence of a 



